Trace Of Innocence

“How was his homecoming party?”

“Awesome. Ended in a bar fight.”

“As only the Quinns’ parties can. That’s the sign it was really good.”

“It was the Murphy brothers.”

“Shit.” He sighed. “Poor Marybeth. Would you check on her for me?”

“Sure thing.”

“You hear from Uncle Sean?”

“Yeah. I visited him a couple of weeks ago. Brought him a picture of his Caddy. He misses the car more than me, I think.”

“The fucking maroon land tank?”

“Yeah. He’s okay. I promised him I’d drive up to visit him next month, too.”

“Courtesy of the Quinn men, Billie, you’ve seen the inside of every prison from southern New Jersey to Dannemora.”

“Dannemora is the worst. I feel like I’m going back to some medieval torture castle when I drive there.” The Dannemora prison rose like a fortress in the mist in upstate New York.

“I’m sorry, Billie.”

“For what, Mikey?”

“Everything. We should be protecting you, watching out for you. And we’re all always on the inside, and you’re alone. Spending your weekends driving to visiting hours and walking through metal detectors to make sure you ain’t bringing us a file so we can escape.”

“I’m a big girl. What else am I going to do with my weekends?”

“I have one word for you, Billie. A rather radical idea—it’s called dating.”

“Well, I am sort of seeing Jack again. Though he’s pretty well sick of the fact that I spend my weekends visiting prisons, and I’m knee-deep in PCR tests and lab procedures. Then again, he’s a cop with a ton of baggage, so maybe we’re a good match.”

“You deserve a life, Billie. And this time, when I get out, I promise to keep my nose clean.”

I looked at the picture on my coffee table of me, my long black hair pulled into a ponytail, wearing faded Levi’s and a white T-shirt, no makeup, summer freckles on my suntanned face; Mikey, in jeans and a denim jacket, his black curly hair in need of a trim, his dimples cut deep into the hollows of his cheeks, his arm wrapped around my shoulder, head cocked to one side, lopsided grin as if he knew a funny story he was just dying to tell you; and Dad in his regulation orange prison jumpsuit, his hair cut prison short, graying at the temples, his face still unlined despite the life he lived.

“Mike,” I sighed. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

He was silent. “You mad at me?”

“For what? Being who you are…? No, Mikey. I’ve never been mad at you for that. I’m not mad at Daddy. I’m not mad at Uncle Sean. I just worry. I don’t want you to ever go back in, Mike. I miss you.” I swallowed hard and wiped at a stray tear in the corner of my eye.

“Listen, the line for the phone is long. Let me go. Love ya.”

“Love you, too,” I said, then hung up. I looked around my apartment. A small one-bedroom, it boasted fourteen-foot ceilings with crown molding and wood floors. Were I a yuppie, I am sure the place would have looked fantastic with trendy furniture. Instead, it’s an eclectic mix and match—homey and comfortable, but without any definitive style. My coffee table belonged to my uncle Mack—he’s serving nine years in Sing Sing for racketeering. I had a really beautiful dining room table, too big for the space, which was where I ate and where I worked at night sometimes. Desk and table all in one. It was a beautiful cherrywood, from my cousin Joey, who had to leave town in a hurry. “I’ll buy new when I come back,” he’d said.

I had a nice television. I wasn’t sure if it was bought legally or not. My dad gave it to me, and I’ve found it’s much easier on my stress level to just not ask where his gifts come from. There’s usually no taking them back—no receipts.

A few chewed cat toys were strewn on the Oriental rug that once belonged to Uncle Sean. My cat, a Siamese named Raphael, came over to me and slid against my leg, purring.

“Hey, baby,” I whispered and bent down to pick him up. I stood and walked over to the wall unit. It was cluttered with Quinn family memories. Every available spot of shelf space boasted a picture frame—photo after photo of my family—extended cousins and uncles included.

I went to one picture that was always front and center. My mother smiled out from the middle of the photo, Mikey on one side of her, me on the other. Her smile was openmouthed, as if my father, the photographer, had caught her midlaugh. She had on rose-colored lipstick, her hair long and framing her face. High cheekbones, blue eyes slightly upturned at the corners. My father never got over her death. I suppose none of us has.

My mother disappeared when I was nine. At first, the police wouldn’t even investigate it because there was no proof she’d been abducted. They thought she had simply tired of being the wife of a mobster and had walked away. Eventually, they decided perhaps she had met with foul play, but by then the case was cold. And it wasn’t until six months later that her body was found. A chain was around her body’s neck—a neck that by that time was only bone. The case was never solved.

How would I feel, I wondered, if we found her killer after all these years, only to watch the system release him? In that moment, I knew. Lewis was my best friend, and I was all for freeing an innocent man—if he was innocent. But I was going to have to meet David Falco myself. Face-to-face. I was going to have to look him in the eye before I stirred up the ghost of a murdered woman.

Chapter 6

I rolled over in bed and, sighing, stared at my digital clock. Midnight. I couldn’t sleep.

Slipping out of bed, I pulled on my robe and padded into the dining area where I fired up my laptop at the table. I logged on to the Internet.

Out of the forty e-mails I’d gotten since the last time I’d checked, ten were spam. Fifteen were from my sometime boyfriend Jack; some were sexy messages telling me what he planned to do to me the next time we were together. One was from Mikey—he got to log on to e-mail every once in a while at prison. A couple were from Lewis. One was a ridiculous joke, solidifying my belief that he was several cornflakes short of a full bowl.

I clicked on my browser and plugged in “suicide king murder.” Site after site showed up—crime Web sites. The Internet, I’ve discovered, besides being a playground for porn fans, is also filled with rabid fans of gore. The bloodier, the better.

I clicked on a picture of David Falco. He was wearing a prison jumpsuit in court. Lawyering 101 says have your defendant show up in a suit and tie. You can ask the judge if that’s all right, and I’d never known a judge not to say a suit was allowed. Yet another example of his incompetent lawyer. I searched through the Internet for information on the case. The more I read, the more weary I got of the violence. I turned off the computer and opened my fridge. I poured myself a vodka on the rocks and drank it fast. I wanted to fall asleep. More than that, I didn’t want to dream.

Because in my life, dreams usually lead to nightmares.

I don’t know how C.C. does it every day. It’s bad enough I visit prisons on the weekend. They remind me, most times, of the way I imagine insane asylums were two centuries ago. It isn’t the drab walls and bars that bother me as much as the sounds of human misery.

When you walk into a prison, you hear the screams and yells of men in pain—either physically or mentally, or both. They scream because they don’t want to be there, they moan and yell because they’re crazy but aren’t getting any psychiatric help, and they fill the air with filth—curses and expletives—because they torment each other with it. The entire experience is unnerving.

Three days later, after Harry’s drop-by, I was ushered into a small conference room reserved for lawyers and clients. I waited a short time, and David Falco was shown into the room.

His pictures didn’t show how tall he was—about six feet. He had the build of a quarterback, athletic but not hugely muscular. He averted his eyes as he slid into the chair opposite me. The guard left his handcuffs on and said, “I’ll be in the hall.”

“Hi, David.” I smiled.

He nodded. His file told me he was thirty.

“I know C.C. told you we’re taking on your case. Joe Franklin will be your new defense attorney. The wheels of justice grind slowly, so I can’t say when you might expect results or even if we’ll win. But you have my word we’ll be relentless.”

He was still physically beautiful. But his eyes had dark circles under them. I don’t know how anyone sleeps in prison. You either learn to shut out the noise or you’re perpetually sleep deprived. Or both.

“So what’s your side of the story?”

He shrugged.

I knew that convicts closed themselves off. You had to do it to survive if you were a long-timer. The short-timers like my brother, my dad…they usually just got by with humor, making a few friends. But the long-timers were a different breed. I tried to imagine being in my twenties and drawing a life sentence—and being innocent. It would seem like a bad dream. A horror movie.

“Look…I know C.C. told you about me and Lewis. But I don’t know if she told you who I am. Who I really am.”