Chapter 3 - The Wife Nobody Mentioned
Clara Marino had neat handwriting.
That was the first thing I noticed.
Not the prosecutor’s name. Not the appointment circled twice in blue ink.
The handwriting.
Somehow, it was easier to study the shape of a dead woman’s letters than accept what they meant.
The next morning, Dante met me in a conference room with windows, coffee, and no visible weapons.
I noticed all three.
“Did you know?” I asked, setting the calendar between us.
“No.”
“Why didn’t the investigators tell you?”
“I never gave them this calendar. It was in a box of her things. I found it months after the funeral.”
“Did you look into the appointment?”
“The prosecutor had already moved to another office. Victor said she handled a charity matter for Clara.”
“And you believed him.”
“Yes.”
He said it without irritation. That made the answer sadder.
We spent the morning separating what Dante knew from what he had merely been told.
Clara had helped manage the family foundation.
Clara had questioned several charitable grants.
Clara had argued with Victor three days before she died.
Dante had remembered the argument as a disagreement about an event budget.
Now he wasn’t sure.
At eleven, Marianne arrived with my new attorney, Ruth Calder, a woman in practical shoes who looked unimpressed by expensive furniture.
She asked Dante to leave.
He did.
Ruth waited until the door closed.
“Start with your own conduct.”
I told her about the books. The forms. The things I had chosen not to ask.
Nothing about saying it aloud improved the picture.
She took notes.
“Your brother’s medical costs explain your pressure. They don’t erase your choices.”
“I know.”
“Good. That saves us an hour.”
By afternoon, she had instructed me to preserve records, stop accessing anything outside my authorized role, and direct any approach to investigators through her.
For the first time in months, somebody’s instructions made me feel less trapped.
While the lawyers worked, Dante called Clara’s older sister.
Her name was Anna.
She agreed to see me.
Not him.
We met at a bakery in Oak Park, where Anna arrived in a raincoat with a broken umbrella and her sister’s eyes.
“Does he still buy white roses?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Clara hated white roses. He sent them every anniversary after she died.”
I looked down at my coffee.
“She liked yellow?”
“Orange. The loud, ridiculous kind.”
Anna unbuttoned her coat.
“Grief makes people holy in everyone’s memory. My sister wasn’t holy. She was stubborn, impatient, and terrible at parking. She also thought loving Dante meant she could persuade him to change.”
“Could she?”
“Not before she died.”
The words hurt more because she didn’t say them cruelly.
I slid the calendar copy across the table.
Anna looked at it for a long time.
Then she reached into her bag.
“I’ve been waiting nine years for somebody to ask the right question.”
She placed a small notebook between us.
Clara’s handwriting filled the pages.
Dates. Grant amounts. Vendor names.
And one sentence underlined so hard the pen had nearly torn the paper.
V.B. IS USING THE FOUNDATION.
My mouth went dry.
“Why didn’t you give this to the police?”
“I did. The detective said it showed accounting concerns, not who planted a bomb. Later, a man came to my house.”
“What man?”
“I never got his name. He knew where my daughter went to school.”
I watched her fingers tighten around her coffee cup.
“I had an eight-year-old,” she said. “I was scared. I still am.”
I didn’t tell her what she should have done.
I understood too well.
That evening, Dante read the notebook alone.
When he finally spoke, his voice sounded scraped raw.
“She was trying to get out.”
“Maybe she was trying to get you out too.”
“She should have told me.”
I waited.
Then he closed his eyes.
“She probably thought I’d tell Victor.”
There was nothing to add.
His phone rang.
Victor Bellini.
Dante let it ring until it stopped.
A message appeared a moment later.
He turned the screen toward me.
Heard there was trouble with Sal. Family dinner tomorrow. Bring your secretary.
Beneath it came another message.
She seems to be taking an interest in old family business.
I looked at Clara’s notebook.
Then at the invitation.
May you like
For nine years, someone had counted on Dante being too broken to look backward.
Now that he had finally turned around, the man waiting behind him was smiling.
