City Dark(11)

“Yeah, but you can claim her, right? Someone has to.”

“Not really,” Joe said. “I have to deal with the police. I don’t necessarily have to deal with OCME.”

“You know what happens if you don’t? She ends up being buried by inmates. On that island out there.”

“The potter’s field, yes.” He took a long swig from the carton and wiped his chin. “I know that sounds cold, but like I said, I don’t have a mother. I’m within my rights to let the police ask what they want until they go away. I’m not a suspect.”

“It just happened; you don’t know what they’re thinking. And you can’t even tell them for sure where you were Thursday night. I know it’s crazy, but God, what if they start focusing on you? I’ve seen what they can do when they want a case closed.”

“I was probably at one of two bars,” Joe said at lower volume, as if that could contain the shame he was feeling. “Greeley’s, more than likely. I won’t have any issue verifying that. Look, whoever killed her is probably someone she was involved with on the street. If they solve it, it’ll most likely be within a couple of days. If it takes longer than that, it may just stay unsolved. Either way, at some point, yes, the city puts her out on Hart Island. I’m sorry, but that’s where she belongs.”

“What about your brother?”

“Robbie? What about him?”

“You said he was back in touch.”

“Yeah. He’s in Staten Island, but I haven’t been over there in years. He reached out for money once, but otherwise we don’t speak much.”

“Will they talk to him? Detectives, I mean.”

“If they can find him, I guess,” Joe said with a shrug. “They’ll tell him independently of me. I really don’t care.”

“Joe, come on.”

“Come on, what? Why do I need this? Why do I need a five-thousand-dollar funeral bill for a woman who abandoned my brother and me in a station wagon forty years ago?”

“It wouldn’t be five grand,” she said. “I looked it up. You could have her cremated for less than two thousand.” He was aware again of how devoted she had been to him, some pickled suit with a crumbling law practice. He burned anew with guilt.

“She doesn’t deserve my involvement,” Joe said. “And she certainly doesn’t deserve yours. Thank you for looking into that, Halle. I mean it. But she doesn’t.”

“It just seems wrong. It’s not my business, I know.”

“I made it your business, so it is.”

“She’s your family!”

“She was once. She destroyed what was left of my family.”

“She paid for that,” Halle said. Her eyes were pleading, and he wasn’t sure where this desperation was coming from. “Look at how she was found, out there like a stray dog. Whatever she did to you, she was punished for it. Life did that to her. She shouldn’t have to pay again now.”

Joe stared back for a long moment, then sighed. “I’ll go.”

“Good. I’ll take you. I drove here. We can stop at my place, and I’ll get changed. You might need to sober up anyway.”

Halle’s apartment in Sheepshead Bay was close to where she had grown up, a couple of miles east. While she waited in the kitchen, Joe found the remainder of an outfit. He was looking for his loafers, the ones he hadn’t worn since Thursday. Normally he would wear boat shoes, but they were getting smelly. The damn loafers were nowhere to be found, though, so it was back to the boat shoes. He gave them a spray of Lysol.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said when he’d returned. “I’m grateful, but you really don’t.”

“What else am I doing today? We’re still friends, right? Get cleaned up. You know this is the right thing to do.”

It’s also the smart thing, he thought. He couldn’t express it to Halle, but the truth was, it would look odd if word got out in his professional circles—and it would—that his mother had been found murdered and Joe wasn’t stepping up to claim her body. The circumstances really didn’t matter. Going through the motions and making the arrangements were what a person did, at least when that person was a responsible adult and an assistant attorney general.

A responsible adult. That’s a laugh. You have basically no reliable memory from around seven o’clock on Thursday until twenty minutes ago.





CHAPTER 10


Office of the Chief Medical Examiner

Jamaica Hills, Queens

2:15 p.m.

The identification process at the medical examiner’s office had gone to video a few years back. There were still cases where the dead were viewed from behind glass—the gut-wrenching stuff of movies and television. Now, though, the identifying person was escorted to a small waiting room just off the main reception area of the office. A large monitor sat on a desk, and the face of the deceased was displayed via closed-circuit television.

Halle was in the reception area while Joe waited to view the dead woman. He had explained to a staff attendant that there was virtually no hope he’d be able to provide a positive identification. The staffer, a tired-looking older Black man with sad eyes, had simply shrugged. Joe didn’t have to view her if he thought it was futile.