Chapter 2 - THE BRICKED GREENHOUSE
We reached the greenhouse at 11:08 p.m.
Not the glass conservatory beside the ballroom.
The old one.
Behind the carriage house.
Half covered in ivy.
No staff had used it for years.
Maria said Lucia once grew basil there because she refused to buy “sad little grocery-store leaves.”
That sounded like the kind of woman who would hide evidence in a child’s chair.
Luca carried the brass key.
Marco carried a sledgehammer.
Vanessa came too.
Not by choice exactly.
She was not under arrest.
But she had agreed to stay where Luca could see her after Marco found the second phone.
Her father’s number no longer connected.
No surprise.
Victor Bellini’s death had been public.
Heart attack in Florida.
Private funeral.
Closed casket.
I was beginning to hate closed caskets and wealthy families in equal measure.
The greenhouse’s rear wall had one section newer than the rest.
Bricks from the late nineties.
Teresa had been right.
Salvatore sealed the room after Lucia died.
Marco broke through.
Dust filled the air.
Behind the wall was a narrow wooden door.
Old brass lock.
The key fit.
Luca did not open it immediately.
Vanessa whispered:
“Don’t.”
He looked at her.
“Why?”
“I don’t know what’s in there.”
“That has not stopped you from knowing everything else.”
She flinched.
He opened the door.
The smell of dry soil and old paper rolled out.
Shelves.
Terracotta pots.
Gardening tools.
And one green metal cabinet.
On its front:
BENNETT.
Paul.
Marco opened it.
Inside were garden journals.
Not flowers.
Payments.
Dates.
License plates.
Names.
Police commanders.
Judges.
Union officials.
Bellini companies.
Moretti companies.
Maria whispered:
“Oh, Lucia.”
Luca pulled one ledger free.
His mother had been documenting illegal cash transfers disguised as estate landscaping expenses.
Mulch deliveries that never existed.
Tree removal invoices worth hundreds of thousands.
Greenhouse renovations paid to companies linked to Victor Bellini.
The “garden ledger.”
Luca turned pages faster.
Then stopped.
One line:
S. MORETTI APPROVED.
His father.
Vanessa said:
“Luca—”
He lifted one hand.
No comfort.
Not yet.
Paul had written notes in the margins.
MRS. M ASKED QUESTIONS.
SALVATORE ANGRY.
VICTOR CAME AFTER MIDNIGHT.
Then the date Lucia died.
CAR LEFT 10:42.
SALVATORE FOLLOWED 10:47.
BELLINI CAR 10:51.
At 11:16:
CALL FROM MRS. M. SAID “PAUL, IF I DON’T COME BACK, BLUE CHAIR.”
My skin went cold.
Luca read it twice.
His mother had called Paul the night she died.
The official family story said she died at home after a sudden aneurysm.
Maria looked confused.
“She died in the upstairs bedroom.”
Luca nodded.
“That’s what I was told.”
Teresa, who had joined us despite everyone telling her not to walk through mud at eighty-two, gripped her cane.
“No.”
Everyone turned.
“What?” Luca asked.
Teresa looked at the ledger.
“Lucia died at St. Vincent’s.”
Luca stopped.
“My father told me she died upstairs.”
“He lied.”
Maria covered her mouth.
Teresa continued.
“I got to the hospital after midnight.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were sixteen.”
“That is not an answer.”
Teresa closed her eyes.
“I was afraid of Salvatore.”
There.
The sentence behind half the family history.
Luca looked away.
Then:
“How did she die?”
Teresa whispered:
“Poison.”
Vanessa sat down hard on an old bench.
Luca’s face emptied.
“What poison?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who told you?”
“The doctor.”
“Name?”
“Dr. Carlo Vieri.”
Marco searched immediately.
Deceased.
Of course.
But the cabinet held another surprise.
A sealed laboratory envelope.
DR. VIERI — CONFIDENTIAL.
Inside were toxicology results.
Lucia Moretti.
High concentration of foxglove-derived cardiac glycosides.
Digitalis.
Enough to cause arrhythmia.
Enough to kill.
Maria whispered:
“Foxglove.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
She pointed toward the abandoned greenhouse beds.
“Lucia grew foxglove here.”
Vanessa stood.
“That proves nothing.”
Again.
Too quickly.
Luca turned.
“You know something about foxglove too?”
“No.”
Teresa looked at her.
“Your father did.”
Vanessa’s face changed.
Teresa continued.
“Victor gave Lucia a bottle of herbal heart drops two weeks before she died.”
Maria whispered:
“I remember.”
Luca stared.
“What drops?”
“Bellini Naturals.”
Victor owned a supplement company then.
Vanessa laughed bitterly.
“My father sold vitamins.”
“Among other things,” Teresa said.
Then Marco found the last item in the cabinet.
A Polaroid.
Lucia.
Paul.
Victor Bellini.
And a young woman.
Nineteen, maybe twenty.
Vanessa.
Her hand flew to her mouth.
Luca stared.
“You knew my mother.”
Vanessa whispered:
“I met her once.”
“You told me you never did.”
“I was young.”
“What were you doing here?”
She looked at Teresa.
Teresa said:
“Delivering the drops.”
Silence.
Vanessa started crying.
“I didn’t know what was in them.”
Luca stepped back.
“Did you bring poison into my mother’s house?”
“I brought a package.”
“From Victor.”
“Yes.”
“Then you lied about knowing her.”
“Yes.”
“Then you paid Teresa to stay away.”
Vanessa covered her face.
“Because I knew she remembered me.”
There.
The fifty thousand dollars.
Not embarrassment.
Witness suppression.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
A man’s voice.
Weak.
“Emma?”
“Yes?”
“Maria there?”
I recognized him from the staff Christmas party photographs.
Paul Bennett.
“Paul?”
Maria grabbed my arm.
He whispered:
“Tell Luca the chair was empty because I took the real ledger out.”
Luca moved closer.
I put him on speaker.
“Paul,” Luca said. “Where are you?”
Paul breathed hard.
“Old cannery.”
“Who took you?”
A pause.
Then:
“Your father’s lawyer.”
Luca froze.
“My father’s lawyer is dead.”
Paul laughed painfully.
“No, kid.”
Then:
May you like
“Neither is Victor Bellini.”
The call cut.
