Trace of Innocence (14 page)

“What?” Mikey asked.

Tommy nodded. “We used to go to this bar in a rough area of New Orleans. There was this shop, specialized in the ‘black arts.’ We went in there one time, and there were these jars lined up, filled with formaldehyde, and like six different kinds of brains—monkey, dog, cat…. Lewis bought the whole damn collection. You should have seen the looks we got walking through the French Quarter that night.”

“Brains,” I said. “Why does that not surprise me? And where
are
these brains? I’ve never noticed them before.”

“They’re in my pantry. Next to the spice jars. I just haven’t found a good place to display them.”

I shook my head. “Lewis, sometimes…” Before I could finish my sentence, my cell phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Billie?”

“Jack?”

“Billie…I told you to keep out of this. I told you to just keep out. Now you’ve really made a mess of things.”

“
I’ve
made a mess of things? Jack…do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in? Look…Jack…” I was staring at Lewis, my eyes saying,
holy shit, what do I say?

“Billie…I did try to warn you.”

Something about Jack’s tone of voice made me uncomfortable.

“When playing poker, it’s best to be holding all the cards.”

“What do you mean?”

“It means I want the DNA sample from Cammie destroyed. I didn’t kill her, and I’m not going to the executioner.”

“I can’t do that, Jack.”

“Hold on.”

There was the sound of muffled voices. And then a voice way too familiar, sounding sad, anxious. “Billie? I’m sorry, honey—”

Then Jack’s voice. “I’m playing hardball. Don’t call the police or the feds or he’s a dead man.”

Then silence. He had hung up on me.

I folded my phone as everyone looked at me expectantly.

I looked up at Mikey, my voice catching.

“They have Daddy.”

“W
hat?” Mikey grabbed the nearest thing, which happened to be a coffee mug, and hurled it against a wall.

“Mikey…” I tried to soothe him, but my brother wasn’t about to be calmed. He bolted from the room. I looked at Joe. “I’m so sorry…”

“Don’t worry, Billie. Go after him.”

I ran to the next room, where my brother was pounding his forehead with his hands, saying, “No, no, no, no, no…” over and over again.

“Mikey,” I whispered. “Mikey, don’t.” I took
his fists into my hands and stopped him. “Mikey, love, it’s okay. We’ve got the FBI here. We’ll get Daddy. We will, honey.”

He looked at me. “If they harm a hair on his head, Billie…”

“They won’t. If they do, they’d have the wrath of the police, the FBI, and more importantly, the Quinns, on them.”

“Why would they do something like that?”

“I don’t think they know about Tommy Two Trees. We haven’t gone to the cops yet. So for all they know, they can negotiate the DNA sample and go home free.”

“Home free? We have Ginger. We have the body of that woman in Atlantic City. They have prostitutes working at their clubs.”

“All of which means exactly what I said before.”

“What?”

“That they can create reasonable doubt. Without the DNA from Cammie, you basically have four corrupt cops who own strip clubs. I don’t think that’s illegal in and of itself. And you have the word of a stripper turned hooker—tell me how fast that would get destroyed in court. You’re talking walking on the big stuff and going down for a few things that, even if they’re convicted, wouldn’t amount to much time.”

“Shit, Billie. I’m calling in the boys.”

The boys meant the Quinns. All of them in the business of whatever it was the Quinns did a shade or two under the radar.

“Keep the boys out of this. Mikey…this time, let’s work
with
law enforcement, not against it. Tommy Two Trees in there seems like a good guy. Someone we can trust. Okay? Come on.”

“We lost Mommy. If they hurt Dad, I’ll kill them with my bare hands.”

I stared at my brother and for maybe the first time I saw how fragile he was under the surface. He was the motherless boy who had protected his little sister and had to grow up way too fast.

“I know, Mikey. But they won’t hurt him. Come on.”

We went back into the kitchen, where C.C. was picking up the last pieces of the broken coffee mug.

“I’m sorry,” Mikey said sheepishly.

Joe put up his hands. “Hey, man, no problem. We got ourselves a situation, and sometimes, in a situation, you gotta lose it for a few minutes. We’re cool.”

“Cool,” Mikey said in return.

We both sat down, and Tommy asked me, “All right. Repeat exactly what he said, as near as you can remember it.”

I repeated the conversation.

“I have to call the local field office.”

“Don’t,” Mikey said. “Don’t. Let’s handle it ourselves.”

“We can’t,” Tommy replied. He looked right at me. “But I swear to you and your brother, we will get your father and nail these mother-effing bastards to the wall. You see this?” He held up the bear claw.

“Yeah,” I said softly.

“I went hunting with my father and grandfather and killed a bear the summer I turned twelve. It made me a man, and it made me a warrior. And I’m telling you, warriors don’t go down. We don’t. We have a power that the bad guys can’t see. It’s almost mystical. You’re a warrior, Billie. We’re going to get them.”

David came over to me. “We’ll get your dad back. Look at what you and Joe and C.C. and Lewis were able to do. On your own. Put some resources behind you guys and you’re unstoppable.”

I looked up at Mikey. He nodded.

“All right. In the meantime, what do I do if he calls again?”

“Keep him on the line, but he’s slick. They’re cops. I mean, they’re the slickest of them all. They know the score on what we can do with
wiretaps and so on. Basically, you’re going to have to think on your feet and don’t for a second let on that you have an FBI agent here.”

My cell phone rang again.

“Jack?”

“Meet me, with the DNA film and the original underwear from the crime scene, at our place. I’ll leave a boat for you at the landing. Seven o’clock. Sharp. Don’t fuck with me.”

“Jack…”

“You and those Justice Foundation people should have left him in there. Kept out of it.”

He disconnected.

I looked at everyone. “We’re screwed. He wants me to arrive with the DNA film and the panties—alone—at our place.”

“Where’s that?” Tommy asked.

“A small spit of an island in the middle of Greenwood Lake. We used to picnic there. No way for any agents to hide. No way to get to it but by rowboat or small motorboat. Isolated. It’s winter. No tree cover. He’s smart. He knows I’ll be alone.”

I sank my head into my hands.

“Now Wilhelmina,” Lewis said. “You really think I’m going to let one alcoholic cop get the better of me and my six brains?”

I smiled despite my predicament. But I
didn’t see how we were going to win. Mikey came over to me and kissed the top of my head.

“Look at me, Billie.”

I glanced up at him.

“How many times do I got to tell you? You should never fuck with the Quinns. Jack Flanagan and those cops are gonna wish they had never been born.”

W
e basically had eight hours to get an entire plan together. First, Lewis and I replicated the DNA samples again—and then, for safekeeping, again. What Jack and his cop pals didn’t understand was that DNA can have a life of its own.

Blood spatter on a wall, painted over, or in a car trunk’s carpet that’s been steam cleaned, will still glow under the light once Luminol is applied. And a fragment of DNA can be duplicated over and over again.

Then, we went to Kmart and bought a pair of underwear in the same size and a similar
pattern as Cammie’s. I highly doubted Jack and his pals would remember her damn underwear. We took the panties back to Joe’s and washed them five times. I added a few teaspoons of bleach to fade them. They didn’t quite look ten years old, but I sealed them in a gallon Ziploc baggie and hoped Jack would be fooled.

In the meantime, the FBI had put some scuba divers on the shore of the lake, hidden in a boathouse. The waters were icy, and even with dive suits they couldn’t stay in long, but they would be sent into the water once I started toward the island.

Also out of sight would be helicopters with sharpshooters with infrared devices. They would be ready to fly over the island at a moment’s notice. According to Tommy, if my father was with Jack, they’d try to grab them both before they even got to the island.

“And if he doesn’t have my dad with him?”

“It’s all a careful and delicate dance. We’ve got surveillance on all four clubs. You’ll be wearing a wire.”

Mikey didn’t like any of this. “You’re not sending my sister to meet with this fucking psycho. He stuck a
knife
in a girl’s head. In her
head.
Do you realize how fucked up that is?”

Tommy walked over to Mikey—we were in Joe’s den, which was now a mini command
central—and put his hands on Mikey’s shoulders. “I do. I could curl your hair with the stories of shit I’ve seen in my line of work. But the truth is, she’s your sister and Lewis’s friend. So no matter what I say, none of you all is going to relax. I can only tell you that this guy will have to kill me to get to her. I will lay down my life for her. You looking me in the eyes?”

Mikey nodded.

“I’m telling you, as God is my witness, she is going to be so covered…FBI agents up that guy’s ass so far he won’t be able to sit down for a week once we’re through with him. Now you don’t have to be comfortable with this. You don’t have to like it. Hell, I don’t like it at all. But we want to get your father back, and we want to nail the real murderer.”

At four thirty, it was time for me to be wired up, get my bulletproof vest on and get ready. I asked to see Lewis alone. The two of us went into Joe’s office.

“Now, Billie,” he said, smiling mischievously. “I know you’re about to declare your undying, unrequited love for me.”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“See…and I need to tell you that it’s only because you’re about to face a terrible danger that you’re feeling this way.”

“Lewis, shut up.”

“But I love you, too. In fact, my last will and testament leaves my brain collection to you.”

“I should have known that it was hopeless, that I couldn’t have a serious conversation with you.”

“Converse away, my sweet.”

“I just…Lewis, how good an agent is this Two Trees?”

“The best. Even if he is afraid of a little hairy spider.”

“I’m afraid. Not for me, but for my dad. I just don’t want anything to happen to him. You know, when he was younger, I never feared for him. He was invincible, you know? But he’s in his sixties now.”

“Billie, if there’s one person I am not worried about in this whole unmitigated disaster, it’s your father. They turn their backs for one instant, and they’ll find themselves dead. Now you go and nail them.”

I nodded.

“And, Billie?”

“Hmm?”

“I really will leave you my brain collection.”

I rolled my eyes and went out to say goodbye to everyone else. David kissed me and whispered, “See you and your father when you get back.”

Mikey was riding with two agents. In fact,
agents filled the house. They had taken my cell phone and put both a GPS and bugging device in it. A GPS device was on my car. I was wired. I was wearing a bulletproof vest—which didn’t show under my winter jacket, which bulked me up already. I had been instructed as well as possible on how to react to multiple scenarios. We got word from Greenwood Lake that my father was not with Jack.

“They’ll have him stashed somewhere, Billie. Keep him talking. He may slip up,” Tommy told me. He put the tiniest of earpieces in my ear—it was smaller than my pinky nail. As he put it in place, he told me, “Just so you know, you’re never alone.”

I was ready to leave, but C.C. stopped me. She handed me something.

“What’s this?” I looked down at my palm.

“Scapulars.”

“What?”

“You’re Catholic, you should know,” she teased.

“Please. I’m a Christmas-Easter Catholic. If that.”

“You can wear them under your clothes and they’re a form of protection. These have been blessed by Pope John Paul. I’d feel better if you wore them under your coat.”

I couldn’t say no to her, so I took them.

“Thanks, C.C.”

I turned and left the house with Tommy and about ten agents. They all got into various unmarked cars, and I got into mine.

“You there, Billie?”

I heard Tommy’s voice in my ear. My car, I knew, was now wired so they could hear anything that took place inside it. Jack knew how much the Quinns despised law enforcement, so hopefully he wouldn’t suspect they were with me.

“I’m here.”

“Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

I pulled out of Joe’s driveway and made my way to Route 9W.

Jack,
I thought,
did I ever really know you?

“Scotch, please. Rocks.”

Jack had come into Quinn’s around ten. I had been tending bar, covering a few shifts while my cousin Shelley was out having her twin boys.

“Any particular brand? Johnnie Walker Red? Glenfiddich? Dewar’s?”

“I’ll take a Dewar’s.”

I poured him his scotch while sizing him up. I took him for a cop right away. It was a Quinn fam
ily trait to be able to spot them from a mile off. His hair was perfectly trimmed, his carriage just a shade stiff, his posture a little too perfect. And he moved his eyes from left to right, right to left, scanning the room, a habit of criminals—or cops.

“Haven’t see you here before,” I said.

“I come in every once in a while.”

“I’m Billie.”

“Jack.”

“Nice to meet you.”

I moved down the bar, busying myself with other customers. I refilled all the bowls of peanuts in the bar and went to the one near him to refill it.

“I’ll have another.” He slid his glass across the bar.

I poured him another one. Then I got busy again. Eventually, though, he was asking for his fifth scotch.

“You driving?”

“Yup.”

“You know, I’d feel a lot better if you’d let me call you a cab. Quinn’s will pay for it.”

“Look, I’m a cop. Who’s gonna arrest me for a DUI?”

“I don’t care if you’re the mayor, you’re not getting into a car until you sober up. Let me make a pot of coffee.”

“Don’t bother.”

“Look, you run over some kid, or kill a family in a car, and you won’t forgive yourself—and neither will I.”

At the mention of kids, a family, I watched his face change. One minute, he was hostile, a little sneering. The next, he was like a beaten dog with its tail between its legs.

“Okay. I’ll take that coffee.”

I nodded and went to brew a fresh pot for the bar area. When I came back, I poured him a piping hot cup.

“How do you take it?”

“Black.”

“All right, then, bottoms up.” I grinned at him.

He sipped his coffee. Eventually, the bar crowd thinned out. I kept pouring him hot coffee. He kept drinking it.

“You got any kids?” he asked me sometime after one in the morning.

“No. I’d like to someday. It’s just I barely have time to date, let alone get married and have a baby. You?”

He nodded. “I did. She, um, got sick. You know, I still don’t know what to say when people ask me. You know, ‘Do you have kids?’ I don’t know whether to say yes or not.”

I looked at him. I’d been tending bar at
Quinn’s Pub, first for college money and then to help out for vacationing bartenders, for years. I always knew being a bartender was part psychology, part mixology. And frankly, in a place like Quinn’s, most people order beer or something simple, like scotch, Jack Daniel’s and Coke, or vodka drinks, so the mixology part was pretty basic.

I leaned over and put my elbows on the bar. “If it was me, I’d say yeah. I’m a dad. Because even if your little girl is in heaven, you’ll always be her daddy.”

I looked him in the eyes. I watched him swallow hard, his voice got gruff, hoarse, and he said, “Thanks.”

I moved away from him, busying myself with putting things away now that the night was nearly done. He watched me. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him.

I went back to him. “Another coffee for the road?”

He nodded. I poured. Then he asked me, “You know the Quinns?”

“The owners? Sure do.”

“Hmm. I once busted one of the nephews of the big guy. He took a swing at me.”

“Sounds like one of my cousins.”

“Cousins?”

I nodded. Might as well get all our cards on the table. I was a Quinn. He was a grieving father.

“Billie
Quinn.
My dad is the ‘big guy.’”

“Oh.”

“I’m a criminalist. I work at the lab in Bloomsbury when I’m not subbing behind the bar. Assistant director and right-hand woman to the director. Know him? Lewis LeBarge?”

He shook his head.

“It bug you that I’m a cop?”

“It bug you that I’m Frank Quinn’s daughter?”

“Nah. I’ve always been a cop on the edge.”

Funny how you can look back on your life and see all the moments when trouble walked in your door, or when you should have taken a different path. What might have happened if I’d begged my mother not to leave? What might have happened if I had simply let the alcoholic cop take a cab and hadn’t given him my number?

I drove on toward Greenwood Lake. The night was crystal clear and the farther north I got, the more stars I could see. The moon was about half-full, and it illuminated the tree line as the sun set. I was dressed warm in layer after layer. I had no idea what would happen on the island or how long I would be out in the cold night air. I wasn’t relishing what was to come, at all.

I turned off the main road and found the boat landing Jack and I used to launch from. Sure enough, a big rowboat was waiting, oars resting in the bottom of it. I whispered aloud to the agents listening in, “Well boys, here we go. Tell my brother I love him.”