Daylight

Book 3: An Atlee Pine Thriller

by David Baldacci

Genres: Crime Fiction; Suspense

Synopsis

FBI Agent Atlee Pine’s search for her sister Mercy clashes with military investigator John Puller’s high-stakes case, leading them both deep into a global conspiracy — from which neither of them will escape unscathed.

For many long years, Atlee Pine was tormented by uncertainty after her twin sister, Mercy, was abducted at the age of six and never seen again. Now, just as Atlee is pressured to end her investigation into Mercy’s disappearance, she finally gets her most promising breakthrough yet: the identity of her sister’s kidnapper, Ito Vincenzo.

With time running out, Atlee and her assistant Carol Blum race to Vincenzo’s last known location in Trenton, New Jersey — and unknowingly stumble straight into John Puller’s case, blowing his arrest during a drug ring investigation involving a military installation.

Stunningly, Pine and Puller’s joint investigation uncovers a connection between Vincenzo’s family and a breathtaking scheme that strikes at the very heart of global democracy. Peeling back the layers of deceit, lies and cover-ups, Atlee finally discovers the truth about what happened to Mercy. And that truth will shock Pine to her very core.

Release date: November 17, 2020

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 416

Sample

Chapter 1

NOW IS THE MOMENT OF RECKONING.

FBI Special Agent Atlee Pine was sitting in her rental car outside of Andersonville, Georgia, with her assistant, Carol Blum, next to her.

She hit the name on her contact list and listened to the phone ringing.

“Pine, how nice of you to call,” the dripping-with-sarcasm voice said into her ear.

The man speaking was the FBI’s top dog in Arizona, Clint Dobbs. He was the one who had given Pine permission to take a “sabbatical” in order to find out what had happened to her twin sister, Mercy, who had been abducted from their home in Andersonville thirty years before. Six-year-old Pine had nearly died in the process.

“Sorry, sir, it’s just been a little busy.”

“I understand that you have been extremely busy. You solved a series of murders down there, prevented other killings, nearly got blown up in the process, and discovered something truly remarkable about your past. Hell, the Bureau might owe you a bonus.”

“I take it you’ve been kept informed through other channels.”

“You could say that, yes, since you have been remarkably uncommunicative.”

“Would that source of info be Eddie Laredo?”

Laredo was an FBI special agent who had been sent down to Georgia to help in a murder investigation. He and Pine had a history, a complicated one, but she believed they had resolved things.

“I have multiple sources keeping me informed. What did you find out about your sister’s disappearance?”

“When my mother was a teenager she was a mole in a sting operation involving the mob back in the eighties. One of the guys that went down as a result was a man named Bruno Vincenzo, who was murdered after he went to prison. Bruno had a brother in Jersey named Ito. Apparently, Ito found out what happened and blamed my mother for his brother’s death. Somehow he discovered where we were, came down to Georgia, and kidnapped my sister.”

“Do you have a line on this Ito Vincenzo? Is he even still alive?”

“I checked the state’s official online database. There’s no record of his death, but he might not have died in New Jersey. I found out that he lived in Trenton. I’ve got the house address. It’s in the name of a Teddy Vincenzo—that’s his son.”

“Sounds like he might have inherited it, so maybe his old man did die. Maybe he was a snowbird and breathed his last in Florida. If so, he might be beyond your reach, Pine.”

“I can still talk to his family. They might know something helpful.”

“Okay, if they’ll talk to you. And where is this Teddy Vincenzo?”

Pine let out a long sigh. “In prison at Fort Dix.”

“Ah, well, crime indeed runs in the family. At least he’s in Jersey. So you want to go to Trenton now? Is that why you finally called me?” There was an edge to Dobbs’s voice that Pine did not care for.

“I don’t see any other way.”

“Oh, you don’t, do you? Maybe you and I have a different idea about that, Pine.”

“I just need a little more time. I got sidetracked by the murders down here. But for that I could have made a lot more progress.”

“So what you’re saying is that while you’ve been on leave, you’ve actually still been working as an agent.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“I agree with you, Pine,” said Dobbs, surprising her. “You did great work down there, as I already pointed out. If it were up to me, I’d tell you to take as much time as you need, but while I’m the top agent in Arizona, I do have people above me, Pine, a lot of them. And there have been grumblings around the Bureau.”

“I didn’t think I was that important,” said Pine sharply. “And who’s complaining?”

“Let me point it out then. I’ve got two agents on rotation covering for you in Shattered Rock, even though they’ve got their own assignments. They’re not happy about that because they’ve got no backup, which you apparently enjoy but they don’t. And I’ve also had to redirect admin resources there because Carol’s with you. And while I know this is the twenty-first century, the fact that you are, well, you know…”

“You mean the fact that I’m a woman, that the guys don’t think I’m carrying my weight?”

“They think you’re getting special treatment—and, in fact, you are. I’ve had more than a few complaining that they’ve all got problems but they still have to get up and go to work every day, so what’s the deal with you?”

Pine barked, “You were the one to tell me to work out this issue if I wanted to keep working at the Bureau. And the only way I can do that is to find my damn sister.”

Blum put a calming hand on Pine’s arm.

Dobbs said, “I will take into account your natural anger, but just keep in mind who the hell you’re talking to, Pine.”

Pine took a long breath. “I just need a little more time, sir. A few more days.”

Dobbs didn’t say anything for so long that Pine was afraid the man had hung up.

“Trenton, New Jersey, huh?”

“Yes,” said Pine quietly.

“Funny thing, Pine. I started out in Trenton more years ago than I can remember. It was going through some challenging times back then. It’s going through more challenging times right now.” He paused. “Okay, a few more days. If you need any backup or info, dial up the guys there and tell them Clint Dobbs said it’s okay. They won’t believe you, but they’ll believe it when I tell them it’s true.”

Pine glanced at Blum with wide eyes. “Um, I was not expecting that.”

“I wasn’t expecting to say it, Pine. The offer just popped into my head. But I need to make this point as clear as I can: You have to finish this and come home. You got that? The Bureau pays your salary to work for them. I know I told you to go after this to get your head straight, but at the end of the day that’s your problem, not mine. And you’re not the only agent I have to deal with, okay? I got hundreds of them, and they all got problems. You got that?”

“Yes, sir. Got it. And I’m so grateful. Thank you for—”

But Dobbs had already clicked off.

Pine slowly put the phone down. “New Jersey, here we come.”

Chapter 2

TWO DAYS LATER, Pine was driving in her rental car through a working-class neighborhood on the outskirts of Trenton. She was thinking about what she would say to Anthony “Tony” Vincenzo, who sometimes stayed at the home his father, Teddy, had apparently inherited from his father, Ito Vincenzo. She didn’t want to deal with the inevitable red tape of visiting Teddy Vincenzo in prison if she didn’t have to; Tony was low-hanging fruit. But with her current frame of mind, if Tony chose not to help her, she might just shoot him.

As the grandson of Ito Vincenzo, Tony could possibly tell her something about Ito—hopefully where he currently was, if he was still alive.

And that might lead to Mercy, which was why she was here, after all. The road to Mercy had been long and tortuous, and some days the destination seemed as unreachable as the summit of Mt. Everest. But now that Pine finally had a breakthrough in the case, she was going for it. And if it took her longer than a few days, so be it. Pine had been compelled to hunt for her sister after a disastrous encounter with a pedophile who had kidnapped a little girl in Colorado. Her rage, fueled by the memory of her own sister’s abduction, had resulted in Pine’s almost beating the man to death and breaking every rule the Bureau had. Clint Dobbs had given her an ultimatum: Resolve her personal issues about her sister or find another line of work. But now she didn’t need any motivation from Dobbs or anyone else. Now she would willingly chuck her FBI career in exchange for finding her sister.

It’s not just my job that I won’t be able to do if I don’t find out what happened to my sister. It’s my life that I won’t be able to do.

Being able to admit this to herself had been both frightening and liberating.

With a Glock as her main weapon and a Beretta Nano stuck in an ankle holster in case everything else went to hell—which it often did in her line of work—Pine pulled to a stop three cookie-cutter houses down from Vincenzo’s humble abode.

All the homes here were salt boxes with asphalt shingles, about 1,200 square feet set over a story and a half of unremarkable architecture. The area was all post–World War II housing, constituting a grid of homes that had surrounded virtually every city across the country within a decade after the “boys” had come home from fighting Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito. Nine or so months thereafter, Baby Boomers by the millions were born in neighborhoods just like this. Those Boomers were now taking their rightful place as grandparents to the Millennials and the Z generations. What was left was an old, tired group of dwellings inhabited both by the elderly and also those just starting out.

Though they looked alike, the properties did differ. Some yards were neat and organized. Siding and trim were freshly painted. Mailboxes rested on stout metal posts, and washed cars were parked in driveways that had been kept up.

Other homes had none of these attributes. The cars in the driveways or parked in the yards were more often resting on cinder blocks than on tires. The sounds of air-powered tools popping and generators rumbling foretold that some of these places had businesses operating out of them, either legal or not. Siding peeled away from these structures, and front doors were missing panes of glass. Mailboxes were leaning or entirely gone. Driveways were more weeds than concrete or gravel.

She counted three dwellings with bullet holes in the façade, and one that still had police crime scene tape swirling in the tricky wind.

Tony Vincenzo’s place fell into the houses-that-hadn’t-been-kept-up category. But she didn’t care what his home looked like. She only wanted everything he held in his memory or in hard evidence about his grandfather Ito and any others who might have played a role in her childhood nightmare.

She eased out of her car and stared at the front of the house. Ito Vincenzo had once owned this place and had raised his family here with his wife. Pine had no idea what sort of a father and husband he was. But if he had it in him to nearly kill one little girl and kidnap another, she would rate his parental skills suspect, at the very least.

Tony Vincenzo worked at Fort Dix, the nearby army installation. The prison where his father was behind bars was part of that complex. Maybe the son wanted to be close to the father. If so, maybe Tony visited Teddy regularly and thus might have information to share about Ito that he’d learned from his old man.

Pine headed up the sidewalk where the concrete had lurched upward, corrupted by decades of freezing and thawing and no maintenance. She imagined Ito Vincenzo, her sister’s abductor and the man who almost killed her, walking this very same path decades before. The thought left her nearly breathless. She stopped, composed herself, and kept going.

Pine reached the front door and peered in one of the side glass panels. She could see no activity going on in there. If the guy had followed in his daddy’s footsteps, the criminal element would not be out in the open. They usually did their dirty deeds in the basement and away from prying eyes. Yet the guy was gainfully employed at Fort Dix, so maybe he was completely law-abiding.

She knocked and got no answer. She knocked again as a courtesy and got the same result. She looked to her left at the house next door, where an old woman was rocking in a chair on her front porch, some needlework in hand. It was sunny, though cool, and she had on a bright orange shawl. Her gray hair looked freshly permed, with patches of shiny pink scalp peeking through here and there like sunlight through clouds. She took no note of Pine; her bespectacled eyes were focused on stitch one, purl two. Her yard was neatly kept, and colorful flowerpots with winter mums in them were arrayed around the porch, adding needed color to what was otherwise drab and cold.

“Tony’s in there,” the woman said quietly.

Pine walked over to the far end of Vincenzo’s front porch and put her hand on the wooden railing. “You know him?”

The woman, keeping her eyes on her needlework, nodded imperceptibly. “But I don’t know you.”

“Name’s Atlee.”

“Funny name for a girl.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that. So, he’s here?”

“Saw him go in an hour ago and he hasn’t come out.”

“Just him?”

“That I don’t know. But I haven’t seen anyone else.” The whole time the woman spoke quietly and kept her eyes on the knitting. Anyone not standing as close as Pine would not even be able to tell she was speaking to her.

“Okay, thanks for the heads-up.”

“You here to arrest him? You a cop?”

“No, and yes, I am,” said Pine.

“Then why are you knocking on his door?”

“Just want to ask him some questions.”

“He works at Fort Dix.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard.”

“He probably won’t like your questions.”

“Probably not. Does he live here full-time? I couldn’t find that out.”

“He’s in and out. He’s not nice to me. He calls me bad names and he pisses on my flowers. And I don’t like the look of his friends. This used to be a nice neighborhood. But not anymore. Now I just want to make it out alive.”

“Well, thanks.”

“Don’t thank me. Boy’s bad news. You watch yourself.”

“I will.” Pine walked back over to the front door and knocked again.

“Anthony Vincenzo?” she called out.

Nothing. For one, two, three seconds. Then something. A lot of something.

A noise exploded from the back of the house. Pine had heard that sound many times.

A back door being kicked open. Then another familiar noise: feet running away. People were always running away from her. And with good reason. And with equally good reason, she wasn’t going to let that happen.

She leapt over the porch railing as the woman looked up from her yarn and needles.

“Go get the little prick,” she said, a smile creasing her heavily wrinkled face.

Pine’s boots hit the pavement. She was at full speed in five strides.

Inhale through the nose, out through the mouth. Motor the arms and the legs will follow.

A blur of blue shirt and lighter jeans and clunky white sneakers was up ahead and pulling away.

She redoubled her speed but wasn’t making up any ground. Tony Vincenzo was over a decade younger, and undoubtedly faster, even with Pine’s longer legs. And he had the added fuel of fear. Fear could make the slow fast and the weak strong.

And turn a coward into the bravest of the brave, if only because there’s no way out.

“Tony, I just want to talk to you, that’s all,” she shouted out as she sucked in one quick breath after another.

Vincenzo merely increased his speed. Asshole was an Olympian now. She’d need a car to catch him.

Shit.

Pine looked around, eyeing any way she could take a shortcut and catch up to him. She briefly contemplated pulling her weapon and firing a warning shot just to scare the shit out of him, maybe making him run crazy, hit something, and fall over. That would be all she’d need.

She saw it at the last possible second: movement to her right. Then she was blindsided. She tumbled heels over ass, kept rolling on purpose, and popped to her feet in a controlled squat, her Glock out and pointed at the man who’d nailed her.

Only thing was his weapon was out and pointed at her.

“FBI!” she barked, mad with fury. “Drop the gun. Do it!”

“Army CID!” the man barked right back. “Put your weapon down. Now!”

The two were frozen, staring at each other for the longest time.

The man was over six three, ramrod straight, about two hundred extremely fit pounds, and also instantly familiar to Pine. She blinked rapidly, as though hoping it would not turn out to be who she thought it was. It didn’t work.

She lowered her weapon. “Puller?”

John Puller holstered his regulation M11 pistol. He looked equally stunned and was shaking his head. “Pine?”

Tony Vincenzo was long gone.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she asked.

He looked past her, in the direction of where Vincenzo was headed. “I was here to make an arrest.”

She blanched and looked over her shoulder as the truth hit her. “Crap! Tony Vincenzo?”

He nodded, frowning. “Long in the works, Atlee. And you, unfortunately, walked right into the middle of it.”

Chapter 3

THE COFFEE SHOP, the sign outside said, had been in business since 1954. It held cracked red vinyl seats, pasty linoleum flooring, and scarred wooden-backed booths. The kitchen, glimpsed through the pass window, had pots and pans and grease that looked about as old as the restaurant. What it lacked in ambience and cleanliness, it didn’t really make up for with anything else, but maybe that was the point of a beloved local hangout. A few elderly customers were dawdling over their meals and looking at their smartphones.

Pine and Puller sat facing each other in one of the booths, both cradling cups of coffee.

Next to Puller was a man in his early thirties, and who had been introduced to her as CID Special Agent Ed McElroy. He was working on Puller’s team in the Vincenzo case and had been there to help take the man into custody.

“So you two go way back, I guess,” said McElroy.

Puller nodded and glanced at Pine. “You want to tell him?”

Pine took a sip of her coffee. “Puller wasn’t a chief warrant officer yet. And I’d only been with the Bureau about four years. I was still on the east coast back then. I’m assigned out near the Grand Canyon now. Anyway, I was appointed to serve on a joint task force with the Army. A businessman the Bureau was investigating for bribing public officials managed to get his hooks into a couple of senior Army officers.”

Puller took up the story when Pine paused and glanced at him.

He said, “The ‘former’ generals were court-martialed and spent some time reflecting on their sins in the custody of the military branch they once served.” He paused and shot Pine a look. “It got dicey a couple of times.”

“How so?” asked McElroy.

Pine said, “Well, turns out the businessman had ties to a group of mercenaries from overseas. Really bad dudes with no problem killing anybody they were paid to. How many times did they try to kill us, Puller?”

“Three. Four if you count the car bomb that we found before it went off.”

“Damn,” said McElroy. “And what happened to this ‘businessman’?”

Puller said, “He’s having a wonderful time in a federal lockup and will be for pretty much the rest of his life.”

Pine glanced at Puller. “I’m really sorry for blowing your bust.”

“You had no way of knowing. Just bad luck all around.”

“So, you were chasing Vincenzo for crimes committed at Fort Dix?”

“Among other things,” replied Puller, setting his coffee cup down. “Ed and I have been on this sucker for about a month and Tony Vincenzo is right in the middle of it.”

“How long have you been in the Army?” she asked McElroy.

“Going on fifteen years, the last five with CID. Been working with Chief Puller for about nine months now.”

“You have a family?”

“Back in Detroit. Wife and two kids. She’s used to deployments but they were hard. This job is a little more flexible.”

Pine turned to Puller. “So you were about to bring the hammer down on Tony? How come?”

“He’s part of a drug ring operating out of Fort Dix. He works in the motor pool. A good mechanic by all accounts, but apparently his pay wasn’t enough to support his lifestyle. He got hooked up with some really bad guys on the outside.”

“He’s not military then?”

“No. But he was committing crimes on a military installation, which is why I’m involved. Dix is technically under the jurisdiction of the Air Force Air Mobility Command. Base operations are performed by the Eighty-Seventh Air Base Wing, and it provides management as well.”

“But if the Air Force oversees it, where do you come in?” asked Pine.

“It’s a joint base installation, so there are Army and Navy elements there as well. Each branch retains complete control of their commands there. Vincenzo was employed by the Army, so the problem fell to me. He also recruited some stupid Army grunts as part of his plot, so that falls to me, too. The Air Force is in the background only. Army carries the load on this one.”

“Boy, and I thought the Bureau’s structure was unwieldy.”

“The Army out-complicates everybody,” noted Puller matter-of-factly. “And is very proud of that.”

“Was he selling into the military, then, from these outside sources?”

Puller nodded. “We believe so at least. And the readiness of our military isn’t helped by soldiers who happen to be druggies or who can be blackmailed by enemies of this country into doing stuff they should never do.”

“I can see that.”

“And why did you want to see Vincenzo? You working a case involving him? We might want to team up then.”

“No.” She glanced at McElroy for a moment. “It’s personal, John. It…it has to do with my sister.”

“Vincenzo did something to your sister?” said Puller.

“No. This goes way back to his grandfather.”

It was a long story, but Pine managed it in a string of succinct sentences chock-full of information, including what she had recently discovered in Georgia about Ito Vincenzo having taken her sister. She didn’t want to burden Puller with her problems, but she had great respect for him as both a person and an investigator. And it just felt good to get it off her chest.

“Damn,” said Puller when she’d finished.

“Roger that,” said McElroy. “Really sorry that all happened to your family, ma’am. That’s just awful. Nobody should have to go through that.”

“Thanks.”

Puller said, “Well, Tony Vincenzo’s old man is a bad egg, too. He’s in federal prison at Fort Dix.”

“Yeah, I knew that. But all I wanted to ask Tony was where his grandfather Ito was. If he’s even still alive. Since the house is in Teddy’s name, he may not be.”

“New Jersey has an online database for death records,” said Puller.

“I checked there—nothing. But he might have died in another state, and not all of them have online databases you can search.”

“I see your dilemma. But surely Tony or Teddy will know if he’s alive or not.”

“That’s what I’m hoping.”

“Sounds like your mother had quite the unique experience working undercover like that and bringing down the mob. And you have no idea where she is now?”

Pine shook her head. “If she’s still alive, she’s beyond even the Bureau’s ability to find her, because I’ve tried.” She glanced at Puller. “Look, I blew your collar. What can I do to make this good?”

“I’m not sure. We were going to make the arrest because we needed to lean on Vincenzo to get him to rat further up the chain. He’s small fry. CID wants the big boys, and none of the grunts we busted are really privy to their identities. I was deploying a team around the property when you walked into the circle. Ed was heading up the rear flank, but they weren’t in position yet. That’s how he was able to escape out the back.”

“Can I bring any Bureau assets to bear on this?”

He shook his head. “Thanks for the offer, but we’re well stocked with manpower and resources. And we’ll find him. He doesn’t have many places to hide.”

“Will you let me know when you do?”

“I’ll definitely do what I can.”

“I appreciate whatever you can do.”

“We better get going. Got paperwork to file on this.”

Puller rose and so did McElroy.

“A lot more paperwork, because of me,” said Pine.

“If I had a buck for every wrong move I made, intentionally or not? So, kick it out of your head. Just one of those things.”

After they left, Pine stared down at her unfinished meal and muttered, “Shit.”

Chapter 4

YOU HAD NO WAY OF KNOWING,” said Carol Blum.

Pine had returned to her room at the hotel where she was staying with her assistant, Carol Blum, who was in her sixties and had been in admin at the Bureau for nearly four decades. A mother of six grown children, Blum was rarely surprised or intimidated. She was traveling with Pine to help her on this case. Normally, Pine and Blum worked out of a single-agent office in Shattered Rock, Arizona. Known in Bureau parlance as an “RA,” or resident agency, as opposed to the far larger FBI field offices that were located in metro areas.

“I know, but I still feel bad. Puller is a good guy. Knowing him, he’d planned this down to the last detail, only he had no way of realizing I’d walk right into the middle of it and blow the whole thing.”

“But Tony Vincenzo was there? He definitely was the one running away?”

“Yes. John thinks he can track Vincenzo down pretty quickly, but I’m not so sure.”

“Is there any other way to get to Ito’s whereabouts, other than his grandson?”

“Tony was Plan A. But Plan B is I can talk to Ito’s son, Teddy. He’s in the prison at Fort Dix right here in Trenton.”

“Is Fort Dix a military prison?”

“No. It’s just on the military installation’s land. It’s run by the federal Bureau of Prisons. Minimum to medium security, though they’ve got some crime bosses doing time there, along with politicians and businessmen gone bad.”

“Okay. By the way, have you heard from Jack Lineberry?”

“He was supposed to leave the hospital yesterday. He can afford the best home care around.”

“Yes, I’m sure. But I was talking about—”

“I know, Carol,” Pine said sharply. In a calmer tone she added, “I haven’t come to grips with it, if you want to know the truth. I thought he might be able to help me find my mother, but right now he needs to concentrate on healing.”

“Understood.”

“But I will check in and keep him in the loop. And he might have some information for me that could help.”

Pine pulled out her phone. “I was going to try to schedule a meeting with Teddy Vincenzo. But an idea just occurred to me.”

“What?”

“I’m going to have Puller make the request to the prison. He may very well want to talk to Teddy Vincenzo, too, about Tony. Teddy might have some clue about where his son has gone to ground. And while it’s a federal prison, it is located on a military installation, so Puller can help cut through the red tape. We can get in faster that way.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Blum.

Pine made the call and Puller answered on the second ring. She told him what she wanted, and he said he would make it happen, with one condition.

“I want to go with you when you talk to Teddy.”

“I was going to insist that you do,” said Pine.

“I’ll try for zero nine hundred tomorrow, okay?”

“Works for me. I’ll meet you there.”

“See you then.” Pine clicked off and looked at Blum.

Blum said, “Well, this might be a silver lining. I imagine Teddy might know more about his father than Tony would about his grandfather.”

“I was thinking the same thing. Now the only question is, will he talk?”

“With prisoners, it’s always about the quid pro quo.”

“I know, Carol. But we’ll come up with something to dangle in front of him.”

“So what now? We wait until you meet with him?”

“No. I have another plan.”

“What’s that?”

“After Tony got away we searched for other people in the house, but I didn’t really search the house. I think I need to correct that oversight.”

“Do you have a warrant?”

“No, but Puller did. I can piggyback off that.”

“He won’t have a problem with that?” asked Blum, looking skeptical.

“I don’t see why he would. We’re on the same side.”

“Well, he’s looking to nail Vincenzo for a crime and use him to get bigger fish. You’re looking to find out about Ito and solve what happened to your sister.”

“And you think they’re mutually exclusive?”

“Not necessarily. But I’m not sure they’re wholly compatible, either.”

“Well, I’m willing to risk it.”

“That’s what I thought you’d say.”

“And you disapprove?”

“If I did, I would have said so. But just keep what I said in mind, that’s all.”

“I keep everything you say in mind, Carol.”

Chapter 5

YOU DIDN’T GET HIM, DID YOU?”

Pine looked over at the front porch of the house next to the Vincenzos’, where the old woman was still in the rocking chair, though her yarn and needles were nowhere in sight. It had grown chillier and she had on a heavier coat. Pine saw the orange glow of a rusted standup outdoor heater next to her.

“No, I didn’t.”

“He’s fast. But I thought you might have a shot. You’ve got long legs.”

“Not long enough, apparently. Hopefully, I’ll get another chance. You stay outside all day? It’s pretty raw.”

“There’s nothing in the house to keep me occupied. I like to know what’s going on around me. People passing by, punks running from the cops. Speaking of which, they’re inside the house.”

“Military cops, yeah, I know. I saw their cars parked out front. You have any idea where Tony might’ve gone?”

“They already asked me. I’ll tell you what I told them: no. I don’t make conversation with that man if I can help it. I know what he is, and he knows I know. Anybody pisses on flowers, well…”

“Okay. Anything else you can tell me that might be helpful?”

“I have to live here, you know.”

“I know, Ms.…??