Trace of Doubt (6 page)

Chapter 9

O
n Wednesday it was another scorcher. All of New York and New Jersey were waiting for a big rain storm to blow through and cool things off, but none was in sight. Each day I’d watch the weatherman as he predicted more cloudless skies, all the while smiling cheerfully when most of us were feeling rather homicidal from the heat.

The lab, in contrast, was icy cold—and for that I was thankful. We always joked that it was like a meat locker…or cold enough for a morgue. Gallows humor. Over time most criminalists adopted something of a morbid sense of the absurd. I got in to the lab around seven that morning, and of course Lewis was there already, looking smug.

“What?” I snapped at him. “Discover the cure for cancer? The secret of life? The key to immortality?”

“None of the above, but I do have a secret. But what’s eating you, besides the obvious?”

“Oh, I don’t know…I just love sitting around waiting for a serial killer to decide to contact me again, hoping against all hope he screws up so I can nail him. Meanwhile, you’re being wined and dined on thousand-dollar sushi.”

“Speaking of which, you and I are going out to dine on raw fish tonight.”

“Sushi.”

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

“I can’t afford your new tastes. What was it? A cool five hundred for the privilege of walking into that place?”

“My dime. And not that place. We’re going to our usual in Ft. Lee.”

“Are you going to tell me why?”

“No.”

“But my guess is it has something to do with you looking like the cat that ate the canary.”

“Since when do I need a reason to go out to eat with you?”

“Since you became ‘Hollywood LeBarge.’ I’m not going to jump ship to a television show, Lewis.”

“I know, Wilhelmina. Just shut up and come to dinner.”

The day passed by in a blur. As many people as I could spare were processing rape kits, and the sheer number of the backlog was both staggering and depressing. One of my cousins was raped when she was nineteen. She went on a date with a guy she met at college. Had two drinks over dinner, decent conversation, but he wasn’t her type, she’d decided. A little too cocky and entitled. Later he acted like he was driving her home but instead took her to an isolated lover’s lane and raped her.

She told me, then her brother and father. With the last name Quinn, she didn’t bother going to police: her dad—my uncle Eddie—took one look at her bruised lip and bite mark on her neck, and he went to the college, tracked down her rapist and beat him, breaking both the guy’s legs with a bat and bursting his spleen.

My cousin Tara was never the same after it. She was jumpy, didn’t trust anyone. Dropped out of school. She still has to know someone really, really well before she’ll even consider a date. When I look at the backlog of rape kits, all the creeps going free while politicians argue over budgets for DNA testing, I can’t say I’m sorry my uncle chose to handle it the way he did. Eddie didn’t get caught, either. Told the creep that if he said who’d done it, next time four of her cousins would come for him and slice his testicles off. So the guy played it off like a random mugging.

By six that night I was thoroughly tired and emotionally drained. Lewis came to collect me, and I followed his car to Ft. Lee and our usual spot. I still had no idea what Lewis was up to.

The two of us walked into the restaurant, and Lewis waved at a man sitting at a table near the back. I followed Lewis, and the man stood, placed his palms together and bowed to Lewis, who did the same in return.

“Billie, may I present Ben Sato. Detective Ben Sato.”

I was going to put my hand out, but I gave a little bow instead when I saw that was what he was going to do.

“Please, sit down,” Detective Sato said. He was an Asian man, unusually tall—maybe six feet two inches. He was dressed in a navy-blue suit that was well tailored to his trim physique, with the crispest, whitest shirt I had ever seen and an intricate geometric-pattern tie in blues and greens. He had black hair cropped very close to his scalp, making him appear almost bald in a cool rock-star kind of bald way—and high cheekbones, with a devilish smile that kind of made his eyes dance. His eyes were black and when he looked at me, I felt as if he was seeing me in my underwear. I don’t mean in a lascivious way, but in a way in which his gaze seemed like a human lie detector, intense and honest.

I sat and looked at Lewis, waiting, in my usual way when dealing with the eccentric Mr. LeBarge, for an explanation. Sure enough, he started talking in his usual fashion, sounding ever so slightly like the hybrid child of a used-car salesman and a Southern lawyer.

“Wilhelmina, darlin’, Ben and I go way back. Was a time when Tommy Two Trees needed a favor in New Jersey, and Ben here was the police detective who helped him.”

Tommy Two Trees was an FBI agent who helped us solve the Suicide King case. He was a big bear of a man—part African-American, part Native American, one hundred percent the real deal.

“Ben, Tommy and I all went out for a proverbial bender. We discussed life, God, Buddha, women and Occam’s Razor, among other things. And we’ve been comrades ever since. You need a detective, so I got you one, Billie. Voilà. Your detective. Now you get to be somebody else’s headache for a while.”

“I don’t need a detective,” I snapped at him.

“I told you she was a bit ornery.” Lewis smiled at Ben, speaking in an affected whisper as if I was some delusional woman.

The detective stifled a grin. But there his eyes danced again.

“Look, Mr. Sato,” I said, “I’m not sure what false pretense Lewis brought you here on, but I’m sure my cold case isn’t your top priority.”

The waiter came over, and Ben ordered, apparently in fluent Japanese. Lewis ordered me a sake and him a Kirin.

“The sake will help her mellow out,” Lewis said. “I find it’s really essential. The Kirin’s to help me deal with her.”

I punched him on his thigh underneath the table. “Ouch!” Lewis said, quite loudly. Ben Sato had a bemused expression.

After our waiter went back to the bar area, Ben looked poised to say something but he kept silent for a time, and I glanced at Lewis and noticed that he wasn’t rushing to shoot off at the mouth the way he usually did. He was being, dare I say, for Lewis, patient. So I waited.

Finally the guy started talking. “I came here eight years ago from Japan. There, very little crime exists. You can walk the streets of even the biggest cities in an atmosphere of peace. No fear.”

I thought about the streets of some of the neighborhoods where my father and brother operated. Peace and safety weren’t what came to mind.

“I realized,” Ben said softly, “that I was living in a state of perpetual irony. I was called to be a warrior in a place that didn’t need one. And so eventually I came here.”

“And met Lewis, of all people,” I said dryly.

“And met Lewis,” he replied. He smiled at me. “I think of Lewis as a warrior, too.”

“Yeah, he’s a warrior all right. Has he shown you his brain collection yet?”

Ben nodded. “Lewis is admittedly a different sort of warrior. Now tell me…from the beginning.”

I looked across the table at him. I had nothing to lose, and Lewis was right. I needed someone inside the police department to help me resurrect the trail.

Ben Sato wasn’t like any other detective I had ever been around, who usually punctuated and interrupted people’s sentences or asked lots of questions. Ben sat back and just listened in complete silence. He didn’t interrupt, he didn’t stop me to ask me to fill in any blanks. He didn’t take notes. And so in one fell swoop, I told him about my mother’s disappearance, about my father’s “career” and how that meant the police weren’t all that interested in the case, on through the long dormancy until the Suicide King case and my appearances on television, to now receiving the letter, being left the souvenir, the incident at the warehouse and, finally, the possibility that my mother had an affair with a mysterious man named Andrew.

When I was finished, he didn’t say anything, which was disconcerting. I didn’t know whether that meant he thought I was out of my mind, or whether he thought the killer really was returning to torment me.

I looked over at Lewis, who seemed completely unperturbed that Ben was so silent. I tried not to look irritated.

Our waiter approached our table and took our sushi orders. Ben again ordered in Japanese. Lewis ordered a spider roll.

“Don’t tell Ripper,” he told me.

Ignoring him, I ordered a tuna sashimi dinner. And then, finally, Ben looked me in the eyes.

“There is nothing worse than a family left without resolution. I believe it’s like the Greek myth of Achlys. Do you know it?”

I shook my head.

“She was the first being ever in existence, born into perpetual darkness and despair, doomed to perpetual sorrow and crying. When she’s represented in Greek art, to me, she is grief personified. You are like Achlys. Perpetual darkness and sorrow until we find the killer and you can move beyond the dark realm.”

I glanced over at Lewis, my brows knit together. Another one of Lewis’s mythology-spouting pals. He seemed to gravitate toward them. But, like Tommy Two Trees, I sensed Ben was a man of his word, a warrior. So now I had a new partner to sift through the dust of the past to try to solve my mother’s murder.

“That sums up how I feel sometimes. Wandering in perpetual grief.”

“We start tomorrow,” Ben said resolutely.

I nodded and promised Ben I would meet him the next night at nine at a bar in Hoboken after I visited my father. I was supposed to bring Ben all my research, summarized, which was easy to do. For as long as I had been trying to piece together my mother’s murder, I had kept neat file cabinets filled with press clippings, theories, notes and interviews. As I became more computer savvy, I had scanned most of it and compiled it by subject.

I looked over at Lewis. He had found me a warrior, not unlike myself, Lewis, C.C., Joe.

And a warrior was what I needed. Perhaps now I would get the answers that had eluded me my whole life.

Chapter 10

M
y father has never been what you might term forthcoming about his life. I understand why, of course. But I knew if I was going to bury my mother—really bury her in peace—then he and I were going to have to lay all our cards on the table once and for all.

I pulled into my father’s driveway early the next evening, parked and got out. The air was stifling, and I wished the approaching sundown was going to cool things, but I knew it wasn’t. I took a deep breath and strode up the slate walkway and into my childhood home, musing for probably the thousandth time how little had changed about it.

We lived in a typical suburb of manicured lawns and white picket fences when I was young. My father chose our town for its good schools and chose our house so Mom and he could fill it with children and she could have a garden. It was a big Dutch Colonial with five bedrooms and hardwood floors and real plaster walls. A picture window looked out the front, and there was a treehouse hidden in the old oak tree in the backyard that extended to “the woods.” When I was little, it seemed like an impenetrable forest, but it was actually just a hundred-year flood line, so no houses were allowed to be built back there.

When I entered the house, I looked at the wooden staircase leading upstairs, pegs on the wall opposite it. Now my father’s jacket hung from one peg and his keys from another, but when Mikey and I were little, the foyer was a messy zone of childhood. Our coats, galoshes, lunchboxes and book bags were always scattered, along with baseball gloves for my brother and library books for me.

“Dad?” I called out.

“In here,” he called back.

I wandered into the kitchen. He was standing over a pot of boiling water. Spaghetti with jar sauce was about the extent of his cooking repertoire—and mine, come to think of it.

“Hey, Daddy.” I smiled at him and walked over to kiss his cheek. The kitchen was right out of the seventies. He had never bothered to update it. The countertops were avocado green, and though he’d gotten new appliances over the years as things broke down, he still had the old-fashioned range from when my mom was alive. The effect was kind of kitschy.

“Hi. Garlic bread is in the oven, if I don’t burn it. Sit down. Wine is breathing. Your brother will be here in about ten minutes.”

I sat at the long rectangular table and poured myself a glass of red wine—not so coincidentally the same vintage as my likely stolen Australian brand.

“Dad…I went up to Little Siberia on Sunday.”

“God, what a hellhole.”

“Yeah, pretty much…. You know Marty O’Hare’s doing his time there, right?”

“Yeah. Poor son of a bitch. I hate the bastard, but…even he deserves better than Dannemora.”

“He got a message to me. I think he just wants to get under your skin. Something about Mom having an affair.” I decided to leave out the doubts about my parentage for now.

Dad had been stirring the pot of pasta, but he stopped. “That prick. Bothering you with that bullshit.”

“So there’s something to it?” I asked. I held my wineglass by the stem and twirled it, barely breathing while I waited for his answer.

“No. There’s nothing to it. Before your mother met me, she dated this guy for a long time. He had a scholarship to Yale, real smart guy. Old money. That’s who her parents wanted her to marry.”

“Really?” This was the first I’d heard of it. After my mother’s death, my maternal grandparents passed away within two years—I think the strain of losing her was a big factor. “Were you jealous of him?”

Dad turned to face me, anger visible on his face. “Yes.”

My insides crumbled. Could my father have killed her? Even accidentally, in a rage?

“You were?” I managed to say, though my throat was dry despite the wine.

“Yes. Who wouldn’t be? Your mother was beautiful. She was the most perfect woman ever. And I’m not just saying that because she passed away, Billie. She was. Did you know I used to bring her a red rose every single Friday?”

That explained the shoebox of roses.

He sighed, releasing the tension in his jaw. “Of course I was jealous. And this guy and your mother had a history. My own in-laws thought I was no good. And he could have given her a more…normal life. I mean, that’s half the reason I bought this big old house for her. I never wanted her to feel like she lost out by marrying a crook like me.”

“She never felt that way, Dad. I’m sure she didn’t.”

“I know. But people talked. You know how the guys can be.”

“Yeah.” I knew amongst my father and brother and their crew how the ribbing was both sophomoric and intense at times.

“But it was bullshit. And that’s why I just…well, I knew even though Daniel ran into her a few times when she would go to Ridgewood to visit her parents, that I had nothing to worry about. She and I were destiny.”

“Daniel?”

“Yeah. Daniel Carter. He owns that huge shopping plaza over in Ridgewood. A bunch of other property, too. Kind of a real estate tycoon.”

I blinked hard a few times. Who the hell was Andrew, then? How many secrets was my mother hiding?

“Does the name Andrew mean anything to you, Dad?”

He shook his head. “Nope. Why?”

“Oh…nothing. I thought that was what Marty O’Hare said, but I guess I was wrong.”

“Good thing that asshole is in Little Siberia or I’d kill him with my bare hands…. Oh, good…your brother is here.”

I stifled a smile. That was Dad.

Mikey came in, kissed the top of my head, grabbed a cold beer from the fridge and sat down at the table.

“So what’s up, Billie? And where’s David?”

I shrugged. “He’s been so involved with this law school stuff. I don’t know. And it hasn’t been easy adjusting to being around each other. He’s still very closed in a lot of ways. Always on guard. Can’t sleep.”

Dad brought over the garlic bread—fairly burnt but still smelling delicious. “Well, you just be patient, Billie. He’s a good man.”

Next he came over to the table with the pasta and Ragu sauce. He sometimes tosses in some oregano and ground beef to try to doctor it a little. It doesn’t taste half bad.

“I have to tell you both something,” I said quietly once we all started eating.

“What?” My father’s voice had a hint of anxiety to it. He’s never been totally comfortable with the Justice Foundation.

“Well…I got a letter from someone who claimed to know what happened to Mom.”

My father’s face flushed. “Some crackpot?”

“No,” I said gently. “Inside the letter was a scrap of her dress fabric. And then a few days later, I was followed to the shooting range and left a souvenir. I’m not sure who it belonged to—but it was human hair.”

Mikey put down his fork and looked queasy.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have done this over dinner. I just wanted you two to know that the attention the Justice Foundation has maybe gotten has caught the eye of whoever killed her or a witness. And I’m going to figure out who he is. I even have a homicide detective willing to help.”

“Well, I know you don’t want to hear this, but I think Tommy Salami should take you to and from work for a while,” Dad said.

“You know,” I told him, “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. Let’s discuss that some other time, okay? For now, is there anything either of you can think of, anything at all that you think I should know about that night?”

Dad shook his head. “I wasn’t even around. I was on the docks meeting with some longshoremen about gambling receipts from their union when it happened.”

Mikey sipped his beer. “I don’t like to think about it.”

“I know. I don’t either,” I said.

“That’s not true, Billie. Your entire career is about DNA and crimes. Everything about you has to do with her. It’s who you are—you think about it all the time.”

It sounded almost like an accusation. “Mikey…I thought you would want to catch whoever it is. Why don’t you understand that?”

“I do. I just hate thinking about it, that’s all. I barely remember that night. You say you remember a man in the house. I don’t. I remember going up to bed and her coming and tucking me in. And then next thing I remember is the cops giving me milk and feeding me cookies. Then the funeral and everything.”

“You don’t remember her talking to someone in the house?”

He shook his head. “The only weird thing I remember is she had on her pearls. I remember because I was playing with them when she bent over to kiss me good night. But she wasn’t dressed for pearls. Like why put on your best jewelry if you’re just vacuuming and stuff?”

He had never mentioned this detail before. And I had no obvious answer. Had she donned the pearls for Daniel? For my father? For Andrew?

I looked from my father to my brother and back again, and I felt very alone. I couldn’t tell them that as much as I wanted to solve my mother’s murder, I also wanted to find out if I was even a Quinn after all.