“I’m asking for the truth,” Grace said. She peered up at the second-floor window—which she knew looked into Maria’s bedroom—and at the lattice entwined with ivy, which Maria could have easily descended without Barbara’s knowledge.
“She made a drawing,” Grace continued. “It wasn’t Penny, it was her alter, Chloe, who drew it. She drew a toaster on fire and said that something burned up, but ‘she’—I guess Rachel—‘didn’t go away.’
“‘Burned it up.’ Do you know what that means? I believe it’s a message to you, or about you.”
Maria glared at Grace indignantly from her safe perch behind her mother. “Just because I’ve lit a few fires, you think I’m a murderer?”
“I really don’t think you should be here making insinuations,” Barbara said scornfully. “We’re on the witness list. We’re not supposed to talk about the case, especially with you.”
“But there’s new information here, Barbara,” Grace said, invoking her name with hopes it might also evoke some sympathy. “We don’t have all the facts.”
“Don’t have the facts?” Maria said, feeling brave enough to poke her head over her mother’s thick shoulder to confront Grace. “Blood all over Penny … a knife in her hand. I think there’s plenty of facts, and I had nothing … nothing to do with it.”
Penny now, Grace noted.
She wasn’t about to bring up the vile murder fantasies and hit list Maria had been a part of, nor was she about to make any more accusations. She’d come here with one purpose and one purpose only—to plant a seed of doubt in Barbara’s mind.
“I’m just wondering if there’s more to this story than we know,” Grace said.
“What are you getting at?” Barbara snarled, her face going red with anger. “Are you saying Maria was lying to me, to the police?”
Grace returned an oh come on kind of look.
“If she said she was home in bed, sick, then she was home,” Barbara insisted.
“I just want you to give it some consideration. Think back to that night. Maria, I’m not saying you committed the crime, but maybe you were with Penny. Did you see something? Did someone intimidate you?”
“You’re intimidating me,” Maria clapped back.
Grace had a second theory she was willing to consider: that it had been Maria’s head someone threatened to stuff into a bucket full of ammonia, not Rachel’s, and that someone could have been Vincent Rapino. With Penny in prison, Maria had good reason to keep her mouth shut—at the risk of having Vince or one of his cronies shut it for her. Why Vince had let both girls live was an open question.
Grace’s other theory, of course, was that she was currently asking questions of a killer.
“The prosecutor told us not to talk to anybody about the case,” Barbara said.
“Barbara, these questions need answers.”
“And you got them. Now, I’m asking you to go, Grace.”
Grace and Barbara had something of a high noon moment during a lengthy stare down.
“Please,” Grace said, her voice pleading, her chest growing heavy. “Ask your daughter the hard questions, make sure you have the full story. Penny’s life is at stake.”
“I’m sorry,” Barbara said. “You’ve been through a lot. But don’t come back here. You’re not welcome.” She removed her hand from the door and gently closed it. Grace could hear the lock click into place.
As Grace made her way to her car, she spied another vehicle coming down the road, this one with a Big Frank’s custom car topper on the roof. She flagged down the driver, a high school student named Pete who’d been working for them for a year. Pete came to a stop a hundred feet from the Descenzas’ house and rolled down the window.
“Hi, Ms. Francone,” he said in a cheerful voice.
“Is that order for 38 Outlook Road?” she asked.
“Yeah, Barbara Descenza,” Pete answered.
“She canceled,” Grace said. “Bring the pizza to a friend’s house, any friend you want.”
Pete said a friendly good-bye, rolled up his car window, put the vehicle in reverse, and drove away.
CHAPTER 31
MITCH WAITED IN THE therapy room, his iPhone camera ready for recording, and used the time between appointments to study the picture Chloe had made. If there were any connections to infer from a child’s drawing of a house, a toaster on fire, and Rachel dead in a basement alongside a jug of ammonia, they weren’t evident to him. Grace had confirmed they didn’t have a tire swing at the house in Swampscott, so that image, along with the rest of the drawing, probably had come from the same place—Penny’s imagination.