Chapter 3 - My Father Knew
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Nobody slept in the Russo house that night.
Matteo ordered Daniel to put Anthony in the guest wing with a guard outside the door and no phone and no car keys.
Rose refused to go back to her own bedroom because Anthony had gone through her drawers there and touched everything she owned.
I made up the small sitting room beside the kitchen for her instead because that room had a lock she trusted and a chair where she could see the garden.
She did not let go of her pearl necklace after Matteo returned it to her neck with his own hands.
Lauren spent the night in the blue guest room down the hall and I heard her crying through the wall until well past midnight.
I stayed awake in a chair beside Rose because every time she woke she reached out to make sure I was still there.
In the morning Matteo asked me to bring coffee to the study and I found him still in his dinner shirt with Salvatore's letter spread open in front of him.
"Sit down, Maggie."
He turned the letter toward me so I could read the parts he had not read aloud the night before.
Salvatore had written the second page in a smaller and harder hand like a man who knew his time was running out.
"'I am not a fool, Matteo, and I have watched Anthony since he was a boy who stole coins from his mother's purse and lied with tears in his eyes.'"
"'I paid his first gambling debt when he was twenty-three and I told myself a father should protect his youngest son.'"
"'I paid his second debt at twenty-seven and warned him there would not be a third rescue from me.'"
"'Last month a man named Victor Kane sent one of his collectors to my office because Anthony had borrowed against future Russo Maritime contracts he had no right to promise.'"
The letter said Salvatore confronted Anthony that same week and ordered him to confess everything to Matteo before the will was finalized.
Two weeks later Salvatore was dead and Anthony told everyone at the funeral that his father had died proud of both his sons.
"Your father tried to protect her, sir."
Matteo nodded slowly.
"She hid it in her own jewelry safe because she knew Anthony would never suspect she had kept anything from him."
"Now I need you to tell me how Anthony got my mother to sign those transfer papers."
Rose came into the study just then wearing her gray cardigan over her nightdress and holding a chipped teacup with both hands to keep them steady.
"I will tell it myself."
Matteo stood at once and helped her into the chair beside mine.
"Anthony came to my room in March with a folder and a smile I had not seen since he was a little boy."
"He said my medical insurance had changed and the company needed new signatures before my next cardiology appointment."
"I told him I did not like signing things I could not read without my glasses."
My stomach turned over as she spoke.
"He held that clear sheet over every page so I could only see the line where my name belonged and nothing above it."
"He told me Lauren had already called the doctor to confirm everything was routine."
"I signed four times because my own son asked me to trust him."
"The next week Lauren took me to lunch and told me Anthony was worried about my memory because I had signed the same form twice."
"She said it kindly and she held my hand while she said it and I believed I was becoming a burden to this family."
They had used her love for her sons to make her doubt her own mind.
Matteo finally spoke in a voice so low I almost missed it.
"Mother, did you ever sign anything for Samuel Greene in 2019?"
Her face brightened a little.
"Of course I did."
"Your father took me to Samuel's office himself and I wrote your name as my successor because you were always the one who would protect this house."
"Anthony was there that day too because he drove us home and he bought me those pink roses I liked from the shop on Fifth."
Matteo and I looked at each other.
Anthony had witnessed that signing in 2019 and he had spent the years since planning how to make that page disappear.
Matteo asked Rose if she would agree to a competency evaluation by an independent doctor chosen by Greene and by nobody in this family.
Rose lifted her chin and said she would take any test they gave her because she knew her own name and her mother's name.
Greene promised on the phone to bring a neurologist from Mount Sinai to the house that same afternoon.
"Maggie, you cleaned my mother's jewelry every Sunday."
"Did you ever notice anything that could prove the pieces in that suitcase are really hers and not copies like the ring?"
"I took photographs, sir."
He stared at me.
"Every Sunday when Mrs. Russo asked me to polish her jewelry, I laid each piece on her blue velvet cloth and took a dated photo with my phone so I could put everything back in the exact same order she liked."
"I have pictures of the pearl necklace and the gold watch and the ruby brooch and the diamond earrings and the sapphire bracelet and the emerald pendant."
"Each photo shows the date on the little calendar she keeps beside her mirror."
"I also have a close picture of the ring from February that shows the tiny chip at the bottom of the original diamond."
Matteo stood so fast his chair scraped the floor.
My hands were shaking when I forwarded forty-seven photographs from my phone while Rose watched with tears running silently down her cheeks.
Those Sunday pictures were about to become evidence and I had taken them only because Rose liked her earrings laid out in a straight line.
Greene called back within an hour after his investigator compared my photographs to the appraisal list from Brooklyn.
Every single stolen piece matched perfectly except for the diamond in the ring.
Matteo put that call on speaker so Rose and I could hear every word for ourselves.
"Henry Weiss in Brooklyn has agreed to cooperate fully because he now realizes the death certificate was false."
"He says Anthony brought the original Russo diamond to him six weeks ago still set in its band and ordered the stone removed."
"He replaced it with a lab created copy that was cut to the same weight so Lauren could wear the band without Matteo noticing the difference."
Rose covered her mouth.
Matteo asked the question we were all afraid to hear answered.
"Where is my grandmother's original diamond now?"
May you like
Greene's voice dropped.
"Weiss says he already sold it to a private buyer through a broker and he claims he cannot legally tell us the buyer's name."
