Strangers In Death

“No, no potential next batter. This ends the game. When she goes for Ben, and she will, it’ll be another game, after a nice, relaxing hiatus. She pitches, she coaches, she manages. And she’s the center.” Eve put her fingertip on Ava’s photo. “She’s always the center. She didn’t call in relief, she called in a shadow. Nobody sees, nobody knows. And the shadow just follows the steps. One strike, in this case, and he’s out.”

“And the shadow fades off, so that she-once more-remains the center. If it follows your metaphor, the late i

“Exactly right. This pitcher doesn’t have to do anything but follow orders. Doesn’t have to strategize, or worry about base ru

“You’re smarter, slugger.” Roarke gave Eve’s hair a quick tug. “It’s going to piss her off when you step up to the plate and hit a grand slam.”

“Right now, I’d settle for a base hit. With Bebe Petrelli.”

“Ava would never have considered you’d look that deep in her lineup. And that is the end of the baseball analogies.” He turned her, kissed her. “Good luck with the former Mafia princess.”

Bebe Petrelli lived in a narrow row house on a quiet and neglected street in the South Bronx. Paint peeled and cracked like old dry skin over the brittle bones of the houses. Even the trees, the few left that used their ancient roots to heave up pieces of the sidewalk, slumped over the street. Along the block, some windows were boarded like blind eyes while others hid behind the rusted cages of riot bars.

Parking wasn’t a problem. There couldn’t have been more than a half a dozen vehicles on the entire block. Most here, Eve thought, couldn’t afford the cost and ensuing maintenance of a personal ride.

“Revitalization hasn’t hit here yet,” Peabody commented.

“Or it took a detour.”

Eve studied the Petrelli house. It looked as if it might’ve been painted sometime in the last decade-a leg up on most of the others-and all the windows were intact. And clean, she noted, behind their bars. Empty window boxes sat like hope at the base of the two windows flanking the front door.

“You said both her kids go to private school on Anders’s nickel?”

Why the empty window boxes stirred pity inside her, Eve couldn’t say. “Yeah.”

“And she lives here.”

“Smart,” Eve replied. “It’s smart. What better way to keep someone under your thumb? Give them this, hold back that. Let’s go see what Anthony DeSalvo’s girl, Bebe, has to say about Ava.”

As they walked toward the front door, Eve saw shadows move at the windows on the houses on either side. Nosy neighbors, she thought. She loved nosy neighbors in an investigation. Rich mines to plumb.

No perimeter security, she noted. Decent locks, but no cams or electronic peeps. Locks and riot bars had to serve.

She knocked.

Bebe answered herself, through the inch-wide gap afforded by the security chain. Eve saw both the wariness and the knowledge of cop in the single brown eye.

“Ms. Petrelli, Lieutenant Dallas and Detective Peabody, NYPSD.” Eve held her badge to the crack. “We’d like to come in and speak to you.”

“About what?”

“Once we’re in, we’ll talk about it. Or you can close the door and I’ll call in for a warrant that would compel you to come into Manhattan to Cop Central. Then we’ll talk about it there.”

“I have to be at work in another hour.”

“Then you probably don’t want to waste any more time.”

Bebe shut the door. Eve heard the rattle of the chain through it. When it opened, Bebe stood, tired and resentful, in a red shirt, black pants, and serviceable black skids. “You’re going to have to make this fast, and you’re going to have to talk while I work.”

With that, Bebe turned and stalked toward the back of the house.

Neat and tidy, Eve thought as she glanced at the living area. The furniture was cheap, and as serviceable as the black skids, but like the windows, clean. The air smelled fresh, with just a hint of coffee and toasted bread as they approached the kitchen.

On a small metal table sat a white plastic laundry basket. From it, Bebe took a shirt, then folded it with quick, efficient moves.

“You don’t need to sit,” she snapped out. “Say what you have to say.”

“Ava Anders.”

The hands hesitated only a second, then pulled out another shirt. “What about her?”

“You’re acquainted.”

“My boys are in the Anders sports programs.”

“You’ve attended Mrs. Anders’s seminars and mothers’ breaks. Retreats?”

“That’s right.”

“And both your boys are recipients of scholarships through the Anders program.”

“That’s right.” Bebe’s eyes flashed up at that, and some of the fear, some of the anger leaked through. “They earned it. I got smart boys, good boys. They work hard.”

“You must be very proud of them, Ms. Petrelli.” Peabody offered a hint of a smile.

“Of course I am.”

“Their school’s a clip from here,” Eve commented.

“They take the bus. Have to change and take another.”

“Makes a long day, for them and you, I imagine.”

“They’re getting a good education. They’re going to be somebody.”

“You had some rough times in the past.”

Bebe tightened her lips, looked away from Eve and back to her laundry. “Past is past.”

“The DeSalvos still have some money, some influence in certain circles.” Eve glanced around the tiny kitchen. “Your brothers could help you out, you and your boys.”

This time Bebe showed her teeth. “My brothers aren’t getting near my boys. I haven’t said word one to Frank or Vi

“Why is that?”

“That’s my business. They’re my brothers, aren’t they? It’s not a crime if I don’t want anything to do with my own brothers.”

“Why does Anthony DeSalvo’s only daughter hook up as an LC?”

“As a way to stick it to him, you want to know so bad. Ended up sticking it to myself, didn’t I?”

A lock of graying hair fell over her brow as Bebe yanked out a boy’s sports jersey to fold. “He wanted me to marry who he wanted me to marry, live the way he wanted me to live. Like my mother, looking the other way. Always looking the other way, no matter what was right in her face. So I did what I did, and he didn’t have a daughter anymore.” She shrugged, but the jerkiness of the movement transmitted lingering pain to Eve. “Then they killed him. And I didn’t have a father.”

“You did some time, lost your license.”

“You think I got shit around here, with my boys in the house? You think I’m on the shit?” Bebe shoved at the laundry basket, threw her arms wide. “Go ahead, look around. You don’t need a warrant. Look the hell around.”

Eve studied the flushed face, the bitter eyes. “You know how you strike me, Bebe? You strike me as nervous as you are pissed off. And I don’t think it’s because you’re on anything.”

“You cops, always looking to screw with somebody. Except when it matters. What good did you do when they killed my Luca? Where were you when they killed my Luca?”

“Not in the Bronx,” Eve said evenly. “Who killed him?”

“The fucking Santinis. Who else? Fucking DeSalvos mess with them, they mess with us. Even if Luca and me, we weren’t the us.” She gripped the basket now, as if to steady herself. And her knuckles went as white as the plastic. “We had a decent place, a decent life. He was a decent man. We had kids, we had a business. A nice family restaurant, nothing fancy, nothing important. Except to us. We worked so damn hard.”

Bebe’s fingers tightened on, twisted a pint-sized pair of jockies before she tossed them back in the basket. “Luca, he knew where I came from, what I’d done. It didn’t matter. The past’s past, that’s what he always said. You’ve got to make the now and think about tomorrow. So that’s what we did. And we built a decent life and worked hard at it. Then they killed him. They killed a good man for no good reason. Killed him and torched our place because he wouldn’t pay them protection. Beat him to death.”