The Girl with the Phony Name Read Online Free PDF Page A

fat hand over his head, plastering down the few remaining hairs.
    â€œWhat do you mean?” said Lucy.
    â€œThe driver of the other car … you know about the crash, don’cha?”
    â€œI know there was a crash.”
    â€œWell, the guy wanted to adopt you. Felt guilty or something. The social workers didn’t think that was such a hot idea. Some local priest got involved … I can’t remember.
Anyhow, there was a lawsuit. The venue got changed. The state got involved. I never found out what happened. Where did you finally end up?”
    â€œBoston,” said Lucy.
    Simchick rolled his eyes. “Figures.”
    Lucy had spent the first eight years of her life at St. Anthony’s. After that she had lived in a succession of foster homes until she had finally escaped to college. Lucy couldn’t even remember the faces of any of the people who had taken her in for the few bucks a week the Massachusetts Department of Social Services paid.
    They were standing in front of a door marked FILE ROOM. Simchick unlocked it with a key from his ring and flipped on a light. The place had a musty smell. It was packed to the ceiling with boxes and metal file-cabinets.
    Simchick had to suck in his stomach to get down the narrow aisle. At the back of the room he knelt with a grunt, opened a drawer, and began fingering through the manila folders. Finally he found what he was looking for.
    â€œHere we are,” he said, rising laboriously. “‘Car crash ten twenty-three. Route Seven. Two fatalities. Baby taken to Pittsfield General.’ This is my own report. Jesus Christ. I was thirty-four years old, can you beat that? It was like yesterday.”
    Lucy felt sick. All her life she had celebrated October 23 as her birthday. Now this fat cop was saying it wasn’t her birthday; it was the day her parents died.
    â€œThe driver of the other car got you out before the fire started. I seem to remember there was some guy from New York involved,” Simchick went on. “Yeah, here it is. Cicarillo, the driver.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?” asked Lucy softly, wanting to scream. She was suddenly full of unfamiliar emotions, feelings so strong and so immediate that they left her with no room to think.
    â€œYeah, it’s all coming back to me now,” said Simchick, reading further.

    Lucy was afraid to speak. Her heart pounded. She didn’t want to know any more. She wanted to turn and run, but it was too late. Simchick was talking again.
    â€œ … burned beyond recognition, both of them. Two suitcases in the trunk, also burned. We identified the driver from the car’s license plate. Here we go. Alex Cicarillo. Caucasian male, age forty-two. Lived in Brooklyn, New York.”
    â€œCicarillo.” Lucy rolled the unfamiliar word around in her mouth. “This … Cicarillo … was my father?” Lucy braced herself with a hand against a file cabinet so she wouldn’t fall.
    Simchick shrugged. “He sure wasn’t about to tell us. We didn’t even know for certain that the woman was your mother. All we had was two dead bodies. Let’s see, we talked to Cicarillo’s sister”—Simchick glanced down at the report again.—“Theresa Iatoni, Mrs. Stephen. Also of Brooklyn. Yeah, this was the problem. The sister claimed the baby couldn’t be her brother’s, him being unmarried and all.”
    â€œThen why was he driving the car?”
    Simchick scratched his head. “Yeah, that was the problem. The sister claimed Cicarillo hired his car out for day rates. But he wasn’t a licensed hack, so there weren’t no records or nothing. The passenger—if she was a passenger and not some girlfriend the sister didn’t know about—the passenger coulda been anybody. A tourist, a neighbor, just somebody looking to get to Vermont. One of our guys was even convinced the two had kidnapped you, but that never