Chapter 3 - THE FOURTH FACE
I didn't recognize the fourth man in the photograph. That was the first frightening thing. The second was that whoever had slipped it beneath Miriam's door knew exactly where I was sleeping.
Miriam examined the paper without touching its face. "We need to tell Ellis."
"I know."
"And after that we're installing a camera outside my door. Not because you're a burden. Because neither of us enjoys surprises."
I called the detective. She had us put the photograph in a clean envelope, photographed both sides herself, and asked for the building's entrance recordings. Miriam's upstairs neighbor had heard footsteps around six, but couldn't describe the visitor. The package might have been delivered by someone trying to help, someone trying to frighten me, or both.
"Don't assign an intention until we know the sender," Ellis said.
It was advice I needed more than I wanted to admit.
The next morning Dominic invited Alessia and me to meet him at his attorney's office, not his penthouse. He told us a retired security auditor could be present if we wished. I agreed on the condition that Miriam could accompany me. Dominic said of course.
His lawyer, Naomi Price, greeted us in a meeting room with windows facing the river. She wore no jewelry apart from a narrow gold band and spoke with a precision that made every pause deliberate. Victor remained under police investigation, and a court had imposed conditions restricting his contact with witnesses while his gun-threat case proceeded. His attorneys denied the broader accusations.
"I don't want you to feel we're conducting an interrogation," Naomi told me. "You can leave at any time. I want you to understand which records we have and which we don't."
I placed the photograph in front of her. "Then tell me who this man is."
Dominic leaned forward. His expression changed.
"Caleb Ross."
"Who's that?" Miriam asked.
"He represented the workers who maintained Mercator Exchange," Dominic said. "He accused my father of using subcontractors who weren't paid. He disappeared from the news after my father died."
Alessia crossed her arms. "He didn't disappear. He was blacklisted. I tracked down his complaint when I was in law school."
"You never told me," Dominic said.
"You never asked," she replied. "Every time Father's name came up, you said someone was trying to tarnish him."
I stared at them. A family could share a surname and live in separate versions of the same past.
"Why wouldn't Ross attend Anthony's funeral?" I asked.
Alessia drew a breath. "Because he was in a city jail that week. Arrested after someone accused him of stealing a ledger from the Mercer offices. The case was dropped later, but the arrest cost him his job."
Naomi wrote down the date and assigned an investigator to obtain certified court records. She did not treat Alessia's memory as an established fact. I found myself liking her.
Dominic opened a folder. Inside were scanned invoices from his father's old files. Ten years earlier, the Mercator Exchange had undergone repairs to its fire doors, service ramp, and freight lift. The payments had gone to businesses managed by Gideon Shaw, who now supervised the port accounts. Several inspection certificates were dated before the repair orders they supposedly confirmed.
"What did your father know?" Miriam asked.
"That's what we're trying to learn," Dominic replied. "He may have authorized the work and failed to inspect it. He may have known it wasn't done. I can't pretend I know."
Alessia looked at him for a long moment. "That's the first time you've said that."
He didn't defend himself.
Naomi explained that an outside forensic accounting team would review the files and that any suspected criminal evidence would be reported through counsel and investigators. She also warned Dominic not to contact Gideon in a threatening or covert way.
"I wasn't planning to," he said.
"I'm pleased to hear it," she replied in a tone suggesting she'd given this warning before.
After the meeting, Alessia walked with me to a small coffee shop. She was twenty-nine, shorter than her brother, with the same dark eyes and an entirely different manner. She spoke quickly and kept noticing exits.
"Dominic took over at twenty-five," she said. "After Dad died, everyone told him strength meant having an answer. He learned that lesson too well."
"He was twenty-five when your father died?"
"Yes. I was nineteen. I went to the police once about the crash. Victor told me I was upsetting our mother. Dominic told me to let the investigators do their jobs. There was nothing left for me to do except leave."
She stirred her coffee without drinking. "What did Matteo mean to you?"
"He was the last person who knew how my father sounded when he laughed."
For a few seconds we sat with that.
"I know Caleb Ross's daughter," Alessia said. "She runs a legal clinic now. If Caleb is willing to speak, we can arrange it without ambushing him."
I hesitated. "Would you ask?"
"I already did. He's considering it."
Back at Miriam's apartment, I called Matteo's niece, Elena Bellini. Her first words broke my heart.
"Bea, why didn't he tell you he was sick?"
"He didn't tell me either."
"He kept working. He said he had one last repair to finish."
She told me the hospital had listed a cardiac event after Matteo collapsed at home, and that further review was pending at the family's request because of unexplained bruising on his shoulder. The funeral would be private, but she wanted me there.
"Of course," I said. "He was family."
"He left you something. Not the shop. A book. I'll bring it."
It arrived two days later in her arms, wrapped in a worn striped tablecloth. A thick red notebook, its pages filled with clothing measurements, fabric suppliers, and commentary in Matteo's slanted handwriting. At the front was a photograph of my father cutting a sleeve while a young Matteo laughed beside him.
For an hour I simply turned pages. A tailor's measurements were intimate without being romantic. A bent shoulder. One hip higher than the other. A cuff worn thin by habit. I could hear my mentors discussing each measurement over morning coffee.
Then I reached a page marked MERCATOR, OCTOBER 14.
Matteo had listed four coats for repair, all dark wool. Each line ended with a small sign: a dot, two dots, three dots, and an empty circle. The last entry bore a note: GIDEON — SERVICE EXIT. RETURN UNSIGNED.
"This isn't an invoice," I said to Miriam.
"What is it?"
"A fitting log. But he's using stitch marks as identifiers. Four people. Four coats."
I looked closer. The entry with three dots belonged to A.R. Anthony Russo. Another bore G.S. Gideon Shaw. The entry next to a single dot was V.H. Victor Hale, although I knew the bodyguard's surname only from Ellis's case information. The empty circle belonged to C.R.—Caleb Ross.
My hands went cold. "They were all dressed for the same meeting."
Miriam read over my shoulder. "Why would a union representative have a custom coat from your father's shop?"
"Because my father sometimes made clothing for people who couldn't pay him," I said. "He did it for funerals, interviews, weddings."
She smiled sadly. "That sounds like Samuel."
At the bottom of the page, in a darker ink, Matteo had written: ONE COAT NEVER COLLECTED. CHECK RETURN BOOK.
I flipped to the back. The return book was missing. Several sheets had been removed carefully along the binding. Matteo's fingerprints, if any survived, could tell little about who had done it. But the torn paper showed a curious detail. One edge had an irregular triangular shape, as though someone had used a dressmaker's pattern wheel as a guide.
I recognized the tool: a tracing wheel with a broken tooth, kept in my shop since I was sixteen.
I took a photograph of the page and sent it to Ellis. Then I called Dominic.
"There's a fourth coat," I told him. "One of the men never picked it up."
"Do you think it's the one Victor wanted?"
"I think we should find out before someone else does."
His answer surprised me. "I agree. But not by ourselves."
That evening Caleb Ross returned Alessia's call. She put us on speaker after obtaining his permission. He was seventy-one now and lived in a small apartment in Queens.
"I didn't know Anthony was going to die," he said without preamble.
Dominic was on the line too. "What were you doing at the Mercator Exchange?"
"Trying to get your father to sign a statement about eighteen men who worked unpaid nights. He asked me to come because he said he had changed his mind about the contractors."
"Did you see Gideon?" I asked.
"I saw someone in a pale coat at the side entrance. Then Victor told me to wait in a stairwell."
"Which stairwell?" Dominic asked.
Caleb paused. "The one that should never have been locked."
I stared at Matteo's notebook.
"You knew it was locked?"
"I heard the chain," he said. "And I heard Anthony arguing that it had to come off before anyone else got hurt."
He went silent before adding, "I never made it to the meeting room. Two officers arrested me downstairs. Someone had reported me for theft."
"Why didn't you testify later?" Dominic asked.
"I tried. Your people called me a liar."
Dominic closed his eyes. "I'm listening now."
Caleb did not thank him. "Then listen carefully. The man in the pale coat carried a leather case. He also carried a small metal tool. When he opened the service door, he twisted the handle twice, as though it didn't work the first time."
I looked at the measurements in front of me. One coat never collected. A service exit. A lock that didn't work.
"What kind of tool?" I asked.
"I couldn't see clearly. But it made a clicking sound," Caleb said. "Three clicks. Then the door shut."
From the hallway came Miriam's voice. "Bea? There's someone downstairs asking about your father."
I stood so quickly my chair struck the wall.
May you like
The visitor had given the doorman a name.
Gideon Shaw.
