"No. This will be fine," I said, giving her the kindest smile I could muster at the moment. I already towered over the girl, who looked to be barely over five feet tall. She was clearly intimidated, and I didn't want to scare her. "Thank you. Tomasso, you said something earlier about my bags?"
He nodded. “I’ll give Pietro a call and see what’s taking them. In the meantime, relax, and you can have the run of the house—I have to go make my rounds."
I shrugged, not knowing what to say. "Thank you. For now, I think I'm going to sit and think."
“Okay, but please, if you want to leave the house, find me. I'll come check up on you later, maybe at seven or eight. That's when we’ll have dinner. And if you don’t have your clothes by then, don’t worry about it.”
I looked down at my paint stained t-shirt and sighed. I could hear the joke in Tomasso's voice, and he wasn't trying to needle me. He was just trying to make the best of a bad situation. "Okay. Thank you."
The next day, I was wearing my second-best suit when I met Dominic Petruzelli, the family attorney. Tomasso drove me down to the police headquarters in his Alfa-Romeo, remarking that he was glad the seats cleaned so quickly. When I asked him what he meant, he told me that he'd spent a half-hour scrubbing the headrest of my seat after I'd bled on it the day before, which did cause me to feel a little bit guilty, even though I obviously couldn’t have controlled it. Dropping me off, he said he'd go wait a little distance away, where the police weren’t so interested in people with the last name of Bertoli.
I didn't have to wait long to meet Dominic. He was waiting in the middle of the plaza outside the police headquarters, and he recognized me immediately, probably from my height and my blonde hair. Even in America, there are not too many six foot blondes running around. "Miss Mendosa? I'm Dom Petruzelli, the Bertoli family attorney."
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Petruzelli. And how are you?"
"First, actually, can you give me a quarter?" he asked. I thought it a strange question, but I found a coin in my purse and handed it over, which he quickly pocketed. "Okay, now you've officially hired me. American legalities—the attorney-client privilege didn't apply until you actually hired me. Anything the Don said is clear under his umbrella, but you were uncovered until just now. As to your question, I'm doing fine. Shall I brief you on how to approach things?"
I smiled at the interesting sharpness of his mind and put my purse back under my arm. "I've dealt with the police before, but please. In general, I was going to give my statement, and if they asked about anything outside what this man looked like, have a sudden bout of not understanding any English."
Dominic chuckled and gave me an admiring look. "Miss Mendosa, you have as good a plan as any Bertoli man I've helped with the police before. Yes, if they stray at all from a description of the man or him running into you, then you clam up, and I'll take over. There's going to be at least one cop whose whole job is to try and get some leverage on the Bertoli family. I know it’s a conflict of interest, but I think it’s in both of our best interests to protect the Don as well as your family."
"Agreed. Now, let's not keep the good public servants waiting," I said, smiling. "After all, we wouldn't want them to get upset with us too quickly, now, would we?"
Inside, I was introduced to a Detective Turner, as well as a Detective Fritz. Fritz seemed to know Dominic and cursed under his breath as Dominic followed me into the questioning room. "For fuck's sake, Petruzelli, she's not even a Bertoli!"
"She's my client, and has paid me a mutually agreed upon retainer," Dominic said evenly, repressing his smile even as he was taking out a digital recorder. "Now, shall we?"
The questioning lasted only about an hour, with most of it being a videotaped statement as to who I saw. In the twelve hours since I'd told the Don, no one matching that description had popped up on the Bertoli network, but perhaps the police had access to things they didn’t. "You say his left eye was blue, and the right one brown?"
"No, Detective. The other way around," I said for what felt like the third or fourth time. "His left eye was brown, his right eye blue. And the scar started above the left eye, in a sort of arc that curved down almost to his mouth. He had a beard, not too well kept, but short, maybe a few weeks at most."
Detective Fritz nodded and tapped his finger on the table. "And why you were walking into the convention center with Tomasso Bertoli?"
"I don’t think that’s relevant to this interview," I said. "What do you think, Mr. Petruzelli?"