Seven Minutes to Noon

Alice waited, frozen next to the garden door. Julius must have thought she had something to do with the article in the newspaper. Had he connected her with Pam Short? Did he know Pam had been digging around on Alice’s behalf? Did Andre Capa work for him? Had Capa reported back before being arrested?
    Alice remembered the old man with the foil cross, saw his bright insistent face and heard him telling her, Take a deep breath lady, one, two, three. Standing there now, pressed against her kitchen door, Alice rubbed her belly and breathed. One, two, three. Her heart was still racing but she could feel a trace of oxygen entering her brain. The deep breathing was working. One. Two. Three.
    With shaking fingers she dialed Mike’s cell phone. After three rings, voice mail answered; he must have been sawing, or instructing Diego, or maybe he was blasting music through the workshop as she knew he often did. Frustration clumped in her throat. “Mike!” she whispered on his voice mail. “Julius was trying to get in! Come home! Please!”
    Alice listened as Julius’s footsteps thumped back down the stairs. She clutched the phone so hard her fingers went numb. Where were Frannie and Giometti? As he reached the foyer, just outside her door, she dialed911 and listened to the phone ring and ring. Then she heard Julius open the building’s front door.
    She crept across the kitchen, into the living room. He was talking to someone. Pressing her ear against the door, she felt the vibrations of his voice, its low pitch, its arrogance. Then she heard a higher, more insistent voice. A voice she recognized.
    Frannie.
    A tinny, distant voice beckoned from the phone in Alice’s hand: “Hello? Hello? Is there an emergency?” Alice pressed the END button.
    Julius was arguing with something Frannie was saying, arguing but managing to hold his temper. The next voice to speak was Paul Giometti’s and whatever he said seemed to rein Julius in. Alice held her breath. They were negotiating something. She heard Frannie’s voice rise with the words “restraining order.”
    “All right,” Alice heard Julius say. “How much?”
    There was a hushed conversation that ended with Julius’s voice tightening, getting higher. “You do that and you’ll regret it.” He marched back upstairs with crisp, angry steps.
    Alice waited where she was and kept listening. Quick footsteps told her Frannie and Giometti were approaching her apartment. At the first knock, she swung open her door. They stepped inside and shut the door behind them. Both the detectives’ expressions were taut, concerned.
    “You okay?” Giometti asked Alice.
    “Just scared, but I’m okay.”
    Frannie angled her sunglasses off her face and used them like a headband to push the dark hair off her forehead, which was misted with sweat. “We want you to file a restraining order.”
    “But he lives here.”
    “Yes, he does.” Giometti’s voice was gentle, in contrast to the sharp squint of his eyes, holding her to a simple certainty: “But you don’t. Not anymore.”
    He was right; she couldn’t stay here with her children.
    “But he’ll find me, won’t he?” Alice said. “He’s angry about the newspaper article this morning. He thinks I had something to do with it. Won’t a restraining order make it worse?”
    “We don’t know,” Giometti said.
    If they said we don’t know to her one more time, she would scream.
    “Listen.” Frannie stepped close to Alice. “If he does it again to you or anyone else, it’s on record, that’s all. It doesn’t mean he’ll stop, but it gives us a paper trail. It helps the lawyers if he ends up in court one day.”
    “If he hurts someone,” Alice said. “If he hurts me.”
    Frannie looked steadily into Alice’s eyes. “That’s right.”
    “Let’s go.” Giometti put his hand on the doorknob.
    “Wait,” Alice said. “I need to get a few things first.”
    She hurried downstairs, where she packed an overnight bag for the family. They didn’t live here anymore, after fifteen years. Just like that.
    Giometti drove the car. Frannie, in the passenger’s seat, twisted around to face the back. Alice told them all about her visit to Judy Gersten, and the prominent photo of Judy with Sal, and Judy’s anguish. Frannie and Giometti had already seen the Times article but apparently hadn’t been surprised by anything they had read. They pulled into one of the precinct’s parking spots. The detectives got out of the front