Chapter 2 - THE FILE WITH THE MISSING PAGE
At ten o'clock, Nell stood outside the library with her hands clasped in front of her apron.
She had considered ignoring the note. She had considered telling Odette she was ill. She had even considered leaving the estate through the laundry entrance and not returning.
But she needed the wages.
And she needed the health insurance contribution that helped cover her father's care.
So she knocked.
“Come in.”
Carmine stood beside the desk. Benny Romano was near the window, holding a thin folder. Palmira sat in a leather chair with a cup of tea.
Nell entered.
“You asked for me, sir?”
Carmine gestured toward a chair.
“Sit.”
“I'd rather stand.”
“That's your choice.”
He placed the newspaper clipping on the desk.
Nell's eyes moved to the photograph.
For a moment, her expression disappeared.
“Where did you get that?”
“Your personnel file.”
“You went through my file?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to know who made the pie.”
Nell looked at him, uncertain whether he was mocking her.
Carmine turned the clipping around.
“Your father owned Fontaine Bakery.”
“He did.”
“You worked there.”
“Until it burned.”
“Your father was blamed.”
“He was convicted in the civil case. The insurance company refused to pay. The bakery was sold to settle the debt.”
“Was he responsible?”
“No.”
Her answer came so quickly that Benny glanced at her.
Carmine leaned against the desk.
“Then why did the investigation say he left an oven running?”
“Because the investigation was false.”
“Do you have proof?”
Nell's jaw tightened.
“I had proof. It disappeared.”
“What kind?”
“The rear exit had been chained from the outside. The alarm system had been disabled. The fire started in the storage room, not near the ovens. My father was in the office when the smoke began. He tried to get through the back door and inhaled enough smoke to damage his brain.”
She paused.
“Those facts were in the first report. The final report left them out.”
Benny opened the folder.
“Who wrote the final report?”
“Fire investigator named Harold Voss.”
Carmine exchanged a glance with Benny.
“Do you know where he is?”
“No. I stopped looking.”
“Why?”
Nell gave a short laugh without humor.
“Because I had to take care of my father. Because lawyers wanted money I didn't have. Because every person I asked said the case was closed. And because someone left a dead rat on our porch with a note telling us to stop asking questions.”
Palmira set down her tea.
“Dear God.”
Nell looked at her.
“I didn't tell anyone in this house because I didn't want trouble.”
Carmine studied her.
“Did you know my father?”
“No.”
“Did you ever meet him?”
“Once. At the bakery. He came in with a man I now know was Rafe Bellandi. They asked my father whether he would sell the building.”
“And?”
“My father refused. He said the bakery had belonged to his family for two generations.”
Carmine's expression did not change.
“When was this?”
“About two weeks before the fire.”
Benny closed the folder.
“Rafe Bellandi wanted the property?”
“He wanted the whole block. My father was the last owner who wouldn't sell.”
Carmine looked at the clipping again.
The bakery stood on a valuable corner near a planned riverfront development. After the fire, the property had been acquired through a shell company and later sold to Bellandi's development group.
A coincidence, perhaps.
But too many coincidences had begun to gather.
“Why didn't you tell the police about the meeting?” he asked.
“I did. The statement wasn't included in the report.”
“Did your father tell anyone else?”
“He told my mother. She died before the fire.”
The room became quiet.
Carmine pushed the file toward Benny.
“Find the original report. Not the version in the newspaper. The first one.”
Benny nodded.
Nell stepped back.
“Am I finished?”
“Not yet.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“I don't want a favor.”
“I haven't offered one.”
“I don't want money, either.”
“Good. I wasn't planning to hand you any.”
Palmira gave him a sharp look.
Carmine continued, “I want to know what happened. If your father was framed, someone used this city to bury the truth. I don't like people doing that without my knowledge.”
Nell looked at him for a long moment.
“Maybe your father knew.”
Carmine did not deny it.
“That is what I'm trying to find out.”
She turned to leave.
“Nell.”
She stopped.
“Did you make the pie because you wanted me to taste it?”
“No.”
“Why did you?”
“Because the chef was hurt, the guests were waiting, and I knew how to make one.”
Carmine nodded.
“Then thank you.”
Nell seemed more unsettled by those two words than by all his questions.
She left the library.
Palmira waited until the door closed.
“You have a strange way of thanking people,” she said.
“I said thank you.”
“After you questioned her like a witness.”
“She answered.”
“She has spent three years in this house being treated as furniture. Don't turn her into a case file.”
Carmine looked toward the door.
“I won't.”
But he was already thinking about the property records.
That afternoon, Benny found the first missing page.
The original fire report had been stored in a municipal archive that was scheduled for digitization. The page describing the rear exit was absent from the scanned copy, but the paper file contained a faint carbon impression where the page had once been.
The missing page had been removed after the initial inspection.
A second discovery came from an old building permit. The rear door had been fitted with an emergency panic bar only six months before the fire. Someone had later submitted a repair request stating that the door was “temporarily secured for theft prevention.”
The request carried the signature of the property manager.
The property manager had been employed by Bellandi Development.
Benny brought the documents to Carmine.
“It's not enough to prove arson,” he said. “But it proves the exit was deliberately restricted.”
“Who ordered it?”
“Still checking.”
Carmine looked at the date.
Three days before the fire.
He called the care facility where Emmett Fontaine lived.
A nurse named Teresa answered.
“Mr. Fontaine is resting,” she said. “Is this about his daughter?”
“Yes. My name is Carmine Orsini.”
There was a pause.
“Mr. Orsini, Nell hasn't told us you're involved.”
“She doesn't know yet.”
“Then perhaps you should speak to her first.”
Carmine accepted the rebuke.
“Is her father able to talk?”
“Some days. He understands more than he can say. Loud noises and unfamiliar people upset him.”
“Has anyone visited him recently?”
Teresa hesitated.
“Two men came last month. They said they were from the insurance company. Mr. Fontaine became distressed after they left.”
“Did you record their names?”
“They didn't sign the visitor book.”
Carmine's voice cooled.
“Then make sure nobody enters his room without identification. I will arrange for the facility to receive the visitor list.”
“I don't want him frightened.”
“Neither do I.”
When Carmine hung up, he saw Nell standing in the doorway.
She had heard enough to understand.
“You called my father's facility?”
“I asked whether he was safe.”
“You had no right.”
“You're correct. I should have asked you first.”
Her anger faltered slightly.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because I think the report is wrong.”
“You think?”
“I know the rear door was restricted. I don't yet know who ordered it.”
Nell crossed her arms.
“My father is not a clue in one of your investigations.”
“No. He's a man who deserves to have his name cleared.”
She looked away.
For a moment, the only sound was the clock on the mantel.
Then Nell said, “If you find something, you tell me first. Not the newspapers. Not your men. Me.”
Carmine nodded.
“Agreed.”
She left.
That evening, he drove to the care facility himself.
He did not bring Benny or the usual security detail. He wore a dark coat and carried a small box from the bakery that still supplied the Orsini kitchen.
Emmett Fontaine sat beside the window, a blanket across his knees. His hair had turned white. His right hand trembled slightly.
Nell was beside him, helping him turn the pages of a picture book.
When Carmine entered, Emmett looked up.
His eyes moved to Carmine's face.
Then to the small scar above his eyebrow.
He gripped the armrest.
“Orsini,” he said, the word rough but clear.
Nell turned sharply.
“Dad?”
Emmett raised one trembling finger toward Carmine.
“Your father,” he whispered. “He knew.”
Carmine felt the room change.
Nell stared at her father.
“Knew what?”
Emmett's mouth worked, but no more words came.
Carmine set the box down.
He had come looking for a witness.
He had found a man who recognized the name of the family that had helped bury his life.
Nell returned to the library before leaving for the night. She had thought of one more detail: the week before the fire, her father had received a letter from the city saying the bakery's rear exit had passed inspection. The letter had been kept in a blue folder with the tax receipts. She could not remember whether the folder had been in the bakery office or at home.
“If it survived, it may show the door was approved before Gallo changed it,” she said.
Carmine wrote the detail down and asked Benny to include it in the search. He did not tell her that he had already begun to suspect the cover-up had been larger than a single payment. He wanted to find proof before giving her another reason to distrust him.
Nell noticed the restraint.
“Thank you for not promising me something you haven't found yet,” she said.
Carmine looked up. “I'm learning.”
That evening, she went back to her small apartment above a laundromat. She kept the rooms neat, the bills arranged by due date, and a photograph of her parents on the kitchen shelf. She stood in front of it for a long time.
May you like
Her father had always said that a recipe was a kind of promise. If you followed the steps carefully, you could make something good even when the day had been difficult. Nell wondered whether the same could be true of justice. The steps were harder to see, and the people who had broken the rules had spent years hiding them.
She called the care facility and asked Teresa to tell her father she would visit in the morning. Then she placed her mother's recipe card beside the phone and went to bed without turning on the television.
