RIGHTER THINKS YOU'RE A NUT CASE, TOO," MA-rino tells my niece. "The only point we're in agreement on."

"Any chance Rocky's been involved with the Chandonne family?" McGovern looks at Marino. "In the past? You're serious when you say you wondered it?"

"Huh." Marino snorts. "Rocky's been involved with criminals most of his goddamn life. But do I know details about what he does with his fucking time, day to day, month to month? No. I can't honestly swear to that. I just know what he is. Scum. He was born bad. Bad seed. As far as I'm concerned, he ain't my son."

"Well, he is your son," I tell him.

"Not in my book. He took after the wrong side of my family," Marino insists. "In New Jersey, we had good Marines and bad Marines. I had an uncle who was with the mob, another uncle who was a cop. Two brothers different as night and day. And then when I turned fourteen, Uncle Asshole Louie had my other uncle whacked_my other uncle being the cop, also named Pete. I was named after Uncle Pete. Shot down when he was in his own front yard picking up his fucking newspaper. We never could prove Uncle Louie had it done, but everyone in the family believed it. I still believe it."

"Where's your Uncle Louie now?" Lucy asks as Anna returns with Marino's drink.

"I heard he died a couple years back. I didn't keep up with him. Never had nothing to do with him." He takes the glass from Anna. "But Rocky's his spittin' image. Even looked like him when he was growing up, and from day one was bent, warped, just a piece of living shit. Why do you think he took the name Caggiano? Because that's my mother's maiden name, and Rocky knew it would really piss me off if he crapped on my mother's name. There's some people who can't be fixed. There's some just born bad. Don't ask me to explain it, because Doris and I did everything we could for that boy. Even tried sending him off to military school, which was a mistake. He ended up liking it, liked the hazing part, doing really crappy things to the other boys. Nobody picked on him, not even on the first damn day. He was big like me and just so goddamn mean the other kids didn't dare touch a hair on his head."

"This is not right," Anna mutters as she sits back down on the ottoman.

"What's Rocky's motive for taking this case?" I know what Berger said. But I want to hear Marino's slant. "To spite you?"

"He'll get off on the attention. A case like this will create a circus." Marino doesn't want to say the obvious, that just maybe Rocky wants to humiliate, to best his father.

"Does he hate you?" McGovern asks him.

Marino snorts again and his pager vibrates.

"What eventually happened to him?" I ask. "You sent him off to military school, then what?"

"I kicked his ass out. Told him if he couldn't follow the rules of the house, he wasn't living under my roof. That was after his freshman year at the military school. So you know what the little psycho did?" Marino reads the display on his

pager and gets up. "He moves up to Jersey, moves in with Uncle Louie, the fucking Mafia. Then has the balls to come back here for school, including law school, William and Mary, so yeah, he's smart as shit."

"He passed the bar in Virginia?" I ask.

"Here, practices all the hell over the place. I ain't seen Rocky in seventeen years. Anna, you mind if I make a call? Don't look like I want to be using the cell phone on this one." He glances at me as he walks out of the living room. "It's Stanfield."

"What about the ID he called you about earlier?" I ask.

"Hopefully what this is about," Marino says. "Another real strange one, if it's true."

While he is on the phone, Anna vanishes from her own living room. I supposed she was going to the bathroom, but she does not come back and I can only imagine how she feels. In many ways, I am more worried about her than about me. I now know enough about her life to appreciate her intense vulnerability and realize the terribly barren, scarred spots on her emotional landscape. "This isn't fair." I begin to lose my composure. "It's not fair to anyone." Everything that has piled up on me begins to unsettle and slide downhill. "Someone please tell me how this happened? Did I do something wrong in a former life? I don't deserve this. None of us do."

Lucy and McGovern listen to me ventilate. They seem to have their own ideas and plans but are not inclined to offer them right away.

"Well, say something," I tell them. "Go ahead and let it out." Mostly, I say this for my niece's benefit. "My life is wrecked. I haven't handled anything the way I should. I'm sorry." Tears threaten. "Right now I want a cigarette. Does anybody have a cigarette?" Marino does, but he is in the kitchen on the phone, and I'll be damned if I am going to creep in there and interrupt him for a cigarette, as if I need one to begin with. "You know, what hurts me most is to be accused of the very thing I'm so against. I don't abuse power, goddamn it. I would never murder somebody in cold blood." I talk on and on. "I hate death. I hate killing. I hate every goddamn thing I see every goddamn day. And now the world thinks I did something like this? A special grand jury thinks maybe I might have?" I let the questions hang. Neither Lucy nor McGovern responds.

Marino is loud. His voice is muscular and big like he is and tends to shove rather than guide, confront rather than fall in stride. "You sure she's his girlfriend?" he is saying over the telephone. I presume he is speaking to Detective Stanfield. "Versus just friends. Tell me how you know that for a fact. Yeah, yeah. Uh huh. What? Do I get it? Hell no, I don't get it. It don't make a shit's worth of sense, Stanfield." Marino is walking around the kitchen as he talks. He is on the verge of snapping Stanfield's head off. "You know what I tell people like you, Stanfield?" Marino snaps. "I tell them to get out of my fucking way. I don't give a rat's ass who your fucking brother-in-law is, got it? He can kiss my butt and tuck it in bed, tell it a beddy-bye story." Stanfield is obviously trying to get in a word or two, but Marino won't let him.

"Oh boy," McGovern mutters, returning my attention to the living room, to my own mess. "He's the investigator for these two men who were probably tortured and killed? Whoever Marino's talking to?" McGovern inquires.

I give her a strange look as an even stranger sensation ripples through me. "How do you know about the two men who were killed?" I grope for an answer that I must be missing. McGovern has been in New York. I haven't even autopsied the second John Doe yet. Why does everybody seem to be omniscient all of a sudden? I think of Jaime Berger. I think of Governor Mitchell and Representative Dinwiddie and Anna. A strong breath of fear seems to foul the air like Chandonne's body odor, and I imagine 1 smell him again and my central nervous system has an involuntary reaction. I begin to tremble as if I have drunk a pot of strong coffee or half a dozen of those heavily sugared Cuban espressos called coladas. I realize I am more afraid than I have ever been in my life and begin to entertain the unthinkable: Maybe Chandonne was offering a hint of truth when he persisted in his seemingly absurd claim that he is the victim of some huge political conspiracy. I

am paranoid, justifiably. 1 try to reason with myself. I am, after all, being investigated for the murder of a corrupt policewoman who probably was involved with organized crime. I realize Lucy is talking to me. She has gotten up from her spot before the fire and is pulling a chair close to me. She sits and leans over, touching my good arm, as if trying to wake me up. "Aunt Kay?" she says. "You with us, Aunt Kay? Are you listening?"

I focus on her. Marino is telling Stanfield over the phone that they will meet in the morning. It sounds like a threat. "He and I rendezvoused at Phil's for a beer." She glances toward the kitchen and I remember Marino telling me late this morning that he and Lucy were getting together this afternoon because she had news for him. "We know about the guy from the motel." Now she refers to McGovern, who sits very still by the fire, looking at me, waiting to see how I will react when Lucy tells me the rest. "Teun's been here since Saturday," Lucy then says. "When I called you from the Jefferson, remember? Teun was with me. I asked her to get here right away."