I stared at him. “Really?”
“Teddy Piro, on the other hand…”
“Wait, what? There’s a Teddyandan Edward?”
“You gave me the name Teddy to look up after I’d found Edward.” Blake tapped at the laptop. “I couldn’t find much on him. Just a really shitty LinkedIn profile. But just now, I decided to look up both names together, and this came up.” He turned the laptop to me. On the screen was an obituary in the archives of the AlbanyTimes Unionfor Sergio Piro—a local banker who had died at the age of eighty-five in 1995. “That’s Edward’s dad,” Blake said. “Look at the last paragraph.”
I read it.He is survived by his son, financier Edward Piro; former daughters-in-law Beatrice, Linda, and Rayanne; and grandchildren, Donna Withers (and husband, Troy), Samantha Smythe (and husband, Bradley), Danielle Piro (and husband, Brian Langford), and Edward “Teddy” Piro Jr.
“Teddy is Edward’s only son,” I said. “And his youngest.”
“Yeah,” Blake said. “Probably spoiled. Classic bad apple.”
“And what do we think his connection is to Leila Donnelly?” Tony said.
“Well, for one thing, Leila’s mother told me that when Leila was in her early twenties, she moved out of her house and stayed with some rich friend of hers in New York that she met at aStar Trekconvention,” I said. “His name was Teddy.”
“Aha,” Tony said. “He’s an incel. He was probably stalking Leila because she rejected him. Maybe he saw how famous she’d gotten and decided they belonged together.”
“We probably shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” I said. “It could be a coincidence that the Trekkie’s name was Teddy.”
“That’s right,” Blake said. “We never assume.”
“Is there a way to figure out ifStar TrekTeddy is Teddy Piro?” Tony asked.
I thought about what Mimi had said about him. The burglary in the Hamptons. “Did you look for arrest records?” I asked Blake.
“I couldn’t find any.”
“You looked up Edward and Teddy both?” Spike said.
“Yep.”
I nodded. “But juvenile records are sealed.”
“Huh?”
“Can I borrow your laptop?”
“Sure.”
I took the laptop from Blake and went to the website ofThe Southampton Press. I clicked on the archives. If Teddy Piro was around Leila Donnelly’s age, he would have been seventeen in 2012, but I needed to account for the possibility that he was a few years older or younger than her. As Blake, Tony, and Spike discussed the best way to look for more info on Teddy, I searched the terms “burglary,” “juvenile,” and, just for the hell of it, “Piro.”
Several articles popped up, most all of them with “Piro” missing. But when I got to the year 2010, I hit paydirt—a whole series of articles about a burglary that took place in July of that year, in which more than $35,000 in jewelry, cash, and electronics had been stolen:
The seventeen-year-old suspect—whose name is being withheld due to his age—is the son of prominent financier Edward Piro, who maintains a summer home down the road from the burglarized residence.
“Maybe we should just contact Edward Piro and ask if his son knew Leila,” Tony was saying.
“Parents don’t always know everything about their kids,” Blake said.
“And they don’t always tell the truth, either,” Spike said.
Tony conceded that it might not be a great idea to call Edward Piro, and they moved on to Melanie Joan’s bail hearing, which was slated to take place the following morning.
“We should go. She needs supporters there,” Spike said. “What do you think, Sunny?”
I couldn’t respond. Couldn’t open my mouth to speak. I’d just gotten to the final article in the series about the Piro robbery, in which several residents expressed dismay over the fact that the seventeen-year-old had gotten off with just probation.It’s all about privilege,said one of these Southampton residents, who was no doubt extremely privileged. But that wasn’t the part of the story that was making my heart pound. It was the final quote in the piece:I think [the boy] has learned his lesson,it read.Money isn’t everything. The Piros are good neighbors, and it’s time we all moved on.It had come from the owner of the burglarized home, famed publisher Gloria Scepter.
