Chapter Fifty-One
Fifty-one
The lobby of Edward Piro’s apartment building was all pink marble, including and most notably the doorman’s station. It reminded me of a Greek palace, or a mausoleum, or a combination of the two.
The doorman was a slim, efficient-looking guy with close-cropped hair and wire-framed glasses.
He wore a spotless navy-blue uniform with shiny gold buttons that looked better suited to winter.
It might have been wool, though it could have been a heavy cotton.
But either way, he was lucky the lobby was air-conditioned.
I was wearing a featherlight Elie Saab T-shirt and a satin skirt, and I was still recovering from the two minutes I’d spent outside.
I gave him my name, and he said Mr. Piro was expecting me.
“Take the far elevator,” he said. “Floor twelve.”
I walked through the lobby, my heels tapping on the marble. I was the only one in the elevator, and so it took me straight up—an express trip.
When I reached the twelfth floor, the doors opened, and I was inside Piro’s apartment.
The living room, to be exact. It was very mid-century modern.
Or maybe just mid-century. There was a long wooden coffee table in front of a watermelon-colored couch that didn’t look very comfortable, matching chairs on either side.
Wall-to-wall carpeting with a Frank Lloyd Wright–style pattern and a sleek credenza that housed a turntable, shelves of vinyl records, and, anachronistically, a flat-screen TV.
There was another flat-screen against the left-facing wall—this one enormous, over a fully stocked wet bar with a tiki motif.
If I didn’t know who lived here, I’d figure Edward Piro for either an especially pretentious young hipster or a meticulous old man who never got around to redecorating. Either way, he liked watching TV.
To my right there were swinging doors that probably led to a kitchen. A few windows, looking out on Park Avenue. A long hallway that stretched out from the far end of the room. “Hello?” I said. “Mr. Piro?”
There was no answer. I heard coughing coming from somewhere down the hallway.
I wasn’t sure whether to follow the sound or wait.
I spotted a manila folder on the coffee table, the name Teddy handwritten on the cover.
Was that there to keep me busy while I waited, like a magazine in a doctor’s office?
I walked over to the table and opened the folder and saw a mug shot of Teddy Piro from when he was seventeen.
Under that, there was a small article about the Hamptons burglary in the New York Post. I skimmed it.
It didn’t name him, but it did include a quote from his father: As a family, we are devastated.
We’d appreciate being left alone at this difficult time.
Next was a stack of high school report cards, bound by a rubber band.
I flipped through them. They were riddled with D’s and F’s, with a few C’s thrown in, in classes like woodworking and fire safety.
I also saw a letter from the dean of a boarding school.
At the top, it said: RE: The expulsion of Edward Piro Jr. I kept flipping through the pile—another mug shot, from when Teddy was a few years past high school, a full rap sheet that included arrests for DWI, reckless driving, operating a boat without a license, and assault.
It was like a scrapbook of bad behavior.
A typewritten note from Edward to his son that had been dated last year, detailing how deeply he’d disappointed him.
It almost made me feel bad for Teddy Piro—having a father who kept a folder like this.
“Mr. Piro!” I called out.
There was more coughing.
“Are you okay?” I stood up and moved toward the hallway, following the sound.
“Mr. Piro?” I said again.
No response. I walked past an empty bathroom, a guest bedroom.
Framed pictures adorned the walls—Edward Piro Sr. and his children, his wives.
Mr. Piro was slim and straight-backed, with thick silver hair and a tight smile.
His wives and daughters all looked like they belonged in shampoo commercials.
I saw a few of a chubby young boy with a grim face.
He stood out in this picture-perfect, smiley family.
I assumed he was Teddy. He had the same build as the man I’d seen parked outside Mimi Donnelly’s, and in most of the pictures, he looked miserable.
There was one, though, that stood out. I stopped in front of it.
It was of the same boy, but as a teenager.
And he was actually smiling. He wore a red Star Trek uniform, and he was standing next to another, skinnier boy who wore the same uniform, in blue.
They were at a convention, posing like their favorite characters, plastic phasers aimed at the camera.
The skinnier boy looked sort of familiar, but I couldn’t quite place him.
Then I noticed the last picture. It wasn’t framed.
It was printed out on computer paper and taped to a closed door at the end of the hall.
Teddy looked to be in his twenties. He and that same, skinny friend flanked a girl in a halter top and jeans.
She had dark hair and frightened eyes. I stared at the tattoo on her arm—that pink-and-white flower.
I swallowed hard. The girl was Leila Donnelly.
The skinny friend, as I now saw, was Greg Scepter.
I knocked on the door. “Mr. Piro? Are you in there?”
There was no answer. I slipped one hand into my purse.
I felt Blake’s knife before I found my gun, so I dropped it into the pocket of my satin skirt, just to get it out of the way.
Then I returned my hand to my bag and found my gun.
It was so quiet in this hallway, as though someone had drained all the energy out of the place, all the air.
I placed my other hand on the doorknob and turned it slowly.
I didn’t hear the sound until I’d pushed open the door.
It showed how thick these walls were, because once I was in the room, it filled my ears: The beeping of monitors.
The sucking sound of a ventilator. The lights were dimmed, the shades drawn.
It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust enough to see the man on the hospital bed.
A frail, silver-haired man on life support, his chest rising and falling again and again, that unnatural rhythm, as though someone was blowing him up and deflating him. “Mr. Piro,” I said quietly.
I heard movement behind me. My pulse sped up, but I stayed calm on the outside. In control. You’re not freezing this time. I grabbed my gun out of my purse with two steady hands and spun around, holding it in front of me.
A man filled the doorway. He was at least a foot taller than me, broad-shouldered and big-boned. His face was the same as in all the pictures. “Teddy,” I said. In one meaty hand, he held a gun of his own.
“I see you’ve met my dad,” Teddy Piro said.
It was the same voice I’d heard on the phone last night, when I thought I’d been talking to Edward.