City Dark(5)

“Wilomena, come on, this is serious. As far as anyone knows, you were the first person to find her over there.”

Wilomena frowned, jutting her lower lip forward, and shifted her eyes to Zochi.

“So what?”

“So did you know her?”

“Seen her ’round.”

“What was her name?”

“Names, names, we all need names,” Wilomena said, as if reciting verse.

Zochi cataloged this in her mind—the possibility that Wilomena was mentally ill, maybe delusional. That was far from uncommon in the city’s homeless population.

“You know what I mean,” she said quietly. “What did people call her out here?” Zochi’s “call” came out cawl.

“Damn, you the smart ones! You got DNA, right? One hundred thirty pounds of it in that body bag just went by. You tell me who she was.”

“It doesn’t work that way. You know that.”

“What do I know? DNA. Y’all know everything now.”

“Nah, we don’t. Listen, no one’s gonna keep you here, Wilomena. It’s a nice night; we’re gonna let you get back to it. But I think you can help us. What was her name?”

Wilomena’s eyes seemed to cloud over. She went back to gazing over the water, gleaming in the moonlight. The moon was taking on a yellow tinge as it descended in the west.

“Lois,” she said finally. “Her name was Lois.”

“Any last name?”

“She was trying to get over there,” Wilomena said, as if she hadn’t heard the question. She nodded toward Staten Island, and Zochi’s eyes followed.

“Staten Island?”

“Yeah, over the bridge. She was trying to get bus fare. But it’s a few buses you gotta take. The B64 to the B1. Then one or two more. It’s like twice the normal fare, and she couldn’t keep all the details straight anyway.”

“Did you see her talking to anyone out here?”

“Nah. She was like invisible, yo. Like all of us.”

“What was in Staten Island for her? Do you know?”

“Nope. She just talked about getting there.”

“Wilomena, how long had she been out here? Do you remember when you first saw her?”

“Twenty questions,” she murmured. “Two, three weeks maybe. Like since the Mermaid Parade.”

“So she’s not someone you’ve been seeing out here very long, then.”

“Is two, three weeks very long?” She put exaggerated stress on “two” and “three.” Definitely not delusional, Zochi thought.

“I get the point. So the name was Lois, huh?”

“That’s her name, yo. Don’t wear it out.” Wilomena’s eyes seemed fixed on the dark water and the blinking red-and-green navigation lights in the harbor. Zochi waited a beat before trying one more time.

“What was her last name, Wilomena?”

“No one needs a last name out here,” Wilomena said. She shifted her eyes, surprisingly alert and cold, back to Zochi. “No one rates a last name out here.”





CHAPTER 6


1:25 a.m.

On Sedrick’s recommendation, Zochi had a PSA 1 cop call the after-hours line for the management of the building and claimed a desk in the office to take a closer look at the contents of the planner. The property manager, a small man with a tuft of gray hair shooting up from his head, sat in his bathrobe in a swivel chair in the corner. He looked thoroughly annoyed. Beside him, a bored-looking PSA 1 cop stood with his arms crossed next to the doorway. Next to him was Len Dougherty, the other Six-Oh squad detective Zochi had called in to assist.

“Whaddya seein’, Zoch?” Len asked, Zochi’s name swallowed in a yawn. Len was tall with a wide face and strong Neanderthal brows that shaded dark, steely eyes.

“DeSantos,” she said without looking up. Her gloves still on, she had gingerly drawn a few of the items from the planner and laid them on the scarred metal desk.

“DeSantos is her last name? Was there ID in there?”

“I’m not sure if it’s her last name or not,” Zochi said. “But it’s the name of the person we’ll probably need to notify. I think we’re looking for her son. Joseph T. DeSantos. He’s a lawyer, or was one. Nobody I’ve heard of, though.”

“What else? Why do you think Lois was his mother?”

“A couple o’ notes,” she said. “Folded up. They’re on paper that’s a lot newer than anything else in here. I’ll go through it all tomorrow, but it looks like she started these notes to him and never finished. One starts, ‘To my baby Joey,’ and then there’s a bunch of stuff I can’t make out. One is folded, and on the outside it says, ‘To Joe from Mom.’ It’s blank, though.”

“There was a guy with that last name in the Bronx,” Len said. “He was an ADA when I was in anti-crime up there. I never met him, but I heard his name.”

“That would make sense,” Zochi said. “I found this.” She handed Len a stained, crumpled business card. On it was a small, neat logo with a blindfolded Lady Justice holding a sword in one hand and scales in the other. Below that was the name of a law firm, ABRAMS & DESANTOS, CRIMINAL LAW. There was a 718 phone number, a website, and an address in Queens.