Busted by Wendy Ruderman Read Free Book Online Page A

faded yellow aluminum siding, sat under the flight path to the Philadelphia International Airport.
    The house was quiet when Trantino and I walked in. Karl was at work; we didn’t yet have kids. Trantino took in the living room, eyeing the black leather couch, hardwood floors, and shelves of art books. He noticed one of Karl’s paintings,an abstract with red, orange, and yellow slashes, a depiction of a violent thunderstorm. Trantino sat at the dining room table. I made him a cup of hot chocolate and gave him a Jell-O pudding snack.
    I asked the question I wanted to know most: Why?
    â€œI can’t believe that I did it. And that’s the truth. I can’t believe that I would kill anybody,” he said.
    We were wrapping up the interview when Karl came home from his job as an art director at an ad agency. Trantino stood and shook his hand.
    â€œTommy Trantino,” he said.
    I could tell that the name didn’t register. Karl had no clue.
    â€œNice artwork,” Trantino said, gesturing toward Karl’s painting with a sweep of his hand.
    While in prison, Trantino pursued an interest in poetry and art, particularly Asian art—Karl’s favorite.
    Karl and Trantino launched into a conversation about Khmer art, Buddha statues, Ganesha wall hangings. It wasn’t long before the two men had their heads buried in one of Karl’s many art history books. Trantino bragged that an art gallery owner in Tokyo wanted to present a show of his artworks.
    â€œYou should stay for dinner,” Karl said.
    Oh, crap, I thought.
    â€œThat’s nice. Thank you. But I need to get going,” Trantino said.
    By then, another reporter, who had joined us, offered to drive Trantino back to Camden. Trantino said he had a line on an apartment there. He borrowed an art book from Karl. We never saw him or the book again. When I told Karl who Trantino was, he was miffed but not furious. We’d been married for three years, and he was used to my shenanigans. A year after Trantino’s home visit, I signed up to cover the warin Iraq without first consulting Karl. It didn’t occur to me that he’d be mad.
    â€œC’mon, you know I would never volunteer to go to Iraq if we had kids. That’d be selfish,” I argued.
    Karl gave me a look, shaking his head. He wasn’t buying my bullshit. He knew me too well. A good story was my drug.
    Barbara drank from the same Kool-Aid.
    She thought nothing of plunking down her credit card to buy a powder blue bulletproof vest for a ride-along with cops on drug raids. “Don’t worry, honey,” she told her husband at the time. “You’ll see $795 on the Visa, but it’s for a bulletproof vest, and the paper will reimburse me.” She didn’t get why the color drained from his face. He told her she had a serious problem.
    Not long after that, Barbara had worn the vest as she shadowed narcotics cops into a crack den. Two little kids—one in diapers—sat on a soiled carpet, watching cartoons and eating Cheerios for dinner. A Phillies Blunt box filled with crack vials sat within reach. There was a filthy mattress strewn with lighters and matches. Barbara opened the refrigerator to find only ketchup, mustard, margarine, and wilted celery. She stood in the doorway as cops cuffed the glassy-eyed twenty-two-year-old mom. Her children sat just a foot away, with blank stares, their legs tucked under their tiny bodies. As cops led the mom outside, she walked by her kids, silent, not even looking at them. Barbara cried when she left the house.
    The next morning, Barbara called the Philadelphia Department of Human Services to see if a social worker could check on the children. An intake worker told Barbara that parents who smoked and sold crack don’t fit the city’s definition of abuse or neglect. Barbara was incensed. She told Ed Moran, a reporter she had partnered with for the story, thatshe was going to check on the kids.