Trace Of Doubt

“No. He’s drywalling his father’s basement. Finishing off an area for his dad to do some woodworking.” David’s mother had died of cancer while he was in prison, but he and his father were exceedingly close. His father had never once given up hope that the real Suicide King killer would be found.

I followed Lewis to my place, then got in his car, and we took the New Jersey Turnpike and headed to Ft. Lee, a bedroom community for Manhattan just across the Hudson via the George Washington Bridge.

“Are you going to tell your father and Mike about the letter?”

“I have to. I just have to figure out how. You know how Dad gets.”

Lewis smirked. “Yes, I do. Two words—Tommy Salami.”

Tommy Salami was the overgrown steroid-huge pit bull of a bodyguard my father saddled me with when he was worried about me. When we were working the Suicide King case, Tommy had even taken a bullet for me. Which meant I was now forever indebted to a man who loved salami, as well as all other Italian cuts of meat. I often sent him gift baskets as a way of still trying to say thank you. But the last—and I mean the very last—thing I wanted to have happen was for my father to decide my mother’s murderer was after me. If Dad thought I was in danger, I’d once again be riding to work with Tommy Salami in my passenger seat—I refused to let him drive.

“We’ll have to call the police, too,” Lewis said. “We can run the tests, but you know, tracking down the postmark and so on, we’ll need to involve them.”

I sighed.

“What?”

“Trust me. Finding anyone on the police force interested in solving my mother’s case will be impossible. No man hours will be devoted to it. Nothing. Why? Because her last name, and mine, is the same as Dad’s. And Mikey’s. And their collective rap sheet is miles long. The Quinn name means they won’t be looking to help us, Lewis.”

“But it’s a murder.”

“An old murder. A cold case. You see how many rape kits we need to process. There are more pressing things for the police to do than find her killer. And to be honest, they botched it. When the trail was fresh, they should have looked more intensely for her. You know the department is loath to admit mistakes.”

He pursed his lips. “What if I try to find a cop to help us? I’m not director of the lab for nothing. More than a few detectives owe me.”

I shrugged. “You can try.”

“Good. Because I was going to whether you agreed or not.”

I smiled to myself and looked out the window. We arrived in Ft. Lee and spied the Japanese place Joe loves, and then circled the block four times until we found a spot.

We put change in the meter and entered the restaurant. Joe waved to us from the back. He’s hard to miss. He used to play football for the New Orleans Saints. A bum knee meant he was sidelined permanently, but they still had to pay out his contract. Unlike a lot of guys who might blow their proverbial wad on women and cars and bling, Joe went to law school. His mother had always wanted him to be a fancy lawyer anyway. Soon, he was negotiating multimillion-dollar deals for some of his old buddies, but a case he took pro bono to free an innocent kid changed him. Now he balances the big money with the Justice Foundation.

Joe half rose from his seat and kissed my cheek. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I have,” I said.

Our favorite waiter, Huang, came over, and I ordered sake and Lewis ordered a ginger ale.

“Well?” Joe asked, using his chopsticks to pick up a piece of cucumber from one of the small spicy salads offered in sample-size dishes when customers sat down.

I told him about receiving the letter.

“You better be careful,” he intoned. “You know, we nearly lost you on the Suicide King case. Have you thought about—”

“Don’t say it,” I snapped.

“I was just going to suggest Tommy Salami.”

“I know. And I’m not interested in being babysat by Mr. Salami. I think I’ll go to the firing range instead.” I had, after the Suicide King case, gotten a carry-and-conceal permit. But I was still unsure as to whether I really wanted to carry a weapon.

Joe leaned back. He was dressed in one of his usual custom suits—you don’t find clothes for an NFL physique in a standard department store. He had his shirts hand-tailored by a former Hong Kong shirtmaker, right down to the JRF embroidered on the cuff in elegant script. “This is getting tiring sometimes. Dealing with this shit.”

“It’s not the penthouse boardroom of some NFL team headquarters,” I said. “It’s the ugly and dirty side of life.”

“Yeah. Well, I for one am tired of dealing with murderers and prisons. And I miss C.C.” He looked at Lewis. “And not in the way you miss C.C. I just miss her calming presence. She was my anchor, man.”

“How’s Vanessa?” Lewis asked. He and I hated her. She and Joe started dating three months before. She was an entertainment reporter for a television tabloid show. She was stunning—and ambitious. And Vanessa clearly had no use for Lewis and me. The two of us wondered what Joe saw in her beyond her obvious beauty.

“She’s after me to shut down the foundation and, swear to God, take a stab at politics.”

I exchanged glances with Lewis. I could just see Vanessa taking over Gracie Mansion with Joe as mayor of New York City.

“You wouldn’t do that, would you?” I found I was grateful for my hot sake, which had arrived, and I downed the first cup, then another.

“I won’t say I haven’t thought about it.”

“What about Marcus Hopkins? What about men like him?” I asked Joe.

“I know. I haven’t made any decisions yet, honest. I wish C.C. was here, though, to talk things over with.” He paused. “You going to visit Marcus Sunday?”

I nodded. “I feel like I have to make the drive. David told me the worst thing in prison when you’re innocent is the lack of hope. You just feel like it’s a never-ending nightmare from which you can’t wake up.”

The three of us ordered sushi and spent the rest of the dinner discussing the Hopkins case, plus looking at files and applications of other possible cases to take on. I lost track of how much sake I drank. All I know is Lewis kept signaling for another one of those cute little sake bottles, and I kept filling my tiny ceramic cup. By the time dinner was over, I was definitely feeling less pain over the stress of getting the letter.

Lewis drove me to my apartment. Before I met David, I regularly crashed on Lewis’s couch. Now I made sure I got home most nights. Before I climbed out, he took my hand in his.

“Be careful, Billie.”

“I will.”

“If it’s your mother’s killer, he wants to play some sort of game with you. Cat and mouse. And guess which part you’re supposed to play? The mouse.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve spent enough time with The Mob that I’m more like a very street-smart rat. You don’t want to mess with a Jersey rat.”

I exited the car and opened the door to my building and let myself in to my apartment. David was asleep in bed. I sometimes wondered if, after prison, with its inherent lack of privacy, he slept better when I wasn’t in the bed next to him.

Bo came over to me and accepted a few pats. My cat slunk over and nudged his head against my knee. The two of them got along surprisingly well.

I flicked on the light in the kitchen and opened the fridge and poured myself a tall glass of apple juice. I was convinced hydration was the secret to avoiding a hangover. I opened a cabinet and took out three Advil. Hydration and over-the-counter pain relievers. I hoped I wouldn’t hate the morning too much.

But they didn’t have a pain reliever for what was really bothering me.

Lewis was considering leaving the lab for stardom on the boob tube.

Joe was considering shutting down the foundation for his ambitious girlfriend’s career plans for him.

C.C. was still MIA.