“Tony goes to Billie Whitelaw and lays this out. His dream will come true if he forgets about the phone booth and the Little Chef and hands over the photo. And the scandal died on its feet.”

Jury was fascinated, listened, gave it some thought. “One thing I find strange, is a man like Servino would marry at all, much less marry a woman like Flora Flood.”

Vincent shrugged. “I don’t know, except it wasn’t her money.”

“And what about this car accident?”

“What about it?”

“There seems to be a question of whether it was really an accident.”

“Look, I think you got the whole relationship backward. She says she wanted out; he didn’t. It was the other way around. Tony wanted the divorce. She was crazy about him. Women usually were. I think he loved her, would have kept going except she was so jealous, always questioning, always suspicious. He couldn’t stand being watched. Yeah, he had a bit on the side. Sure. But if Tony had wanted in or out of that marriage, he could have done it; he could have walked away. Tony could always walk away. Except—” Vincent stopped, looked down at the bar.

Jury leaned closer. He could have sworn the man was near tears. “Except for what, Vincent?”

“His little kid. Except for when he died. Tony’s baby.”

“My God, how awful.”

“It was awful, all right. I never saw a man so grief-stricken. Never. It was like, five, six years ago. They lived in Mayfair. He went home one night …”

25

Six years before

That night, Tony Servino walked through the front door of his Mayfair house and called out to his wife, who didn’t answer. He did not stop to wonder where she was, but immediately made for the nursery upstairs and the baby he liked to call “the little guy.” Sammy was only ten months old, but they had been the best ten months of Tony Servino’s life. Sometimes he thought they’d been the only ten months of his life.

He heard Flora on the phone in the parlor as he made his way upstairs and into the room where the crib was, one of the three rooms that comprised the nursery. The one to the left was the bath, where he went next, and where he heard sounds of water splashing, coming from the bathinette. He didn’t get this, for the room was both dark and empty.