City Dark(7)

“I’m sorry,” Hernandez said after a moment. Joe looked closely at her. She seemed to accept this. Anyway, he could verify it.

“Do you know . . . what happened to her?” he asked.

“We’re not certain. There were no obvious wounds, but suspicious circumstances. It looks like she might have been homeless. I’m sorry to be telling you this.”

“Oh God,” he whispered. His head was no longer spinning from alcohol.

“Does she have any other family you know of?” Hernandez asked.

“I have an older brother,” he said. “He lives on Staten Island, not far from where we grew up. At least, that’s what he tells me.”

“What he tells you?” she asked.

Joe sighed. “I know this all sounds strange. Cold, even. The fact is, I didn’t have a family for a good twenty-five years. My brother and I were raised by my uncle Mike, who was my mother’s younger brother. He died when I was a senior in high school. My brother is kind of a mess. I didn’t talk to him for a long time, but we’ve reconnected some in the last year or two. Not much, though.”

“Do you remember when you saw him last?” Dougherty asked.

“Saw him? It’s been a few months.”

“Could we get his contact information from you?” he asked.

“Of course.” Joe waved Doris over and asked for a pen. He checked his phone and then scribbled the cell number he had for Robbie. “The woman you found—did she have identification on her?”

“She had some personal papers,” Hernandez said. “That and what I believe is a business card of yours. They’re what led us to you. The note we found was to a Joe. A Joey, actually. Was that a name she used for you?”

Joe hesitated, trying to shake a deeply stunned feeling. “Uh, yeah, I’m sure she did.”

“I’ll have to examine the personal effects more fully. We can discuss it more later. I can’t release them, though; they’re evidence. I’ll keep them safe.”

“I understand. Has she been autopsied?”

“It’s scheduled for tomorrow. We’ll follow up, but they may reach out to you.”

“I couldn’t identify her,” Joe said, his eyes going blank. “It’s been too long.”

“They’ll get that,” Dougherty said.

“I understand you’re a trial attorney,” Hernandez said. “And you were an ADA?”

“I was for years, in the Bronx.”

“Did you handle homicides?”

“Quite a few, yeah, but it’s been a while. I worked more as a defense attorney. That was mostly in Queens.”

“We can connect you with victim services,” Hernandez said. “Even if you know the drill, it can be overwhelming when it happens in your own family.”

“She wasn’t really my family, but thank you. Yes, I know the drill. I understand it’s a homicide investigation. I don’t think I can help, but I’ll make myself available for whatever you need. I can’t speak for my brother, but I think he’ll cooperate also.”

“We appreciate that,” Hernandez said. “Here’s my card.”

When the detectives left, Doris walked over, cautiously it appeared to Joe, like she wasn’t sure who he really was.

“They think they found my mother,” he said, then related what the detectives had told him. He gave Doris about the same amount of backstory he’d given the cops. He wasn’t being cagey. There just wasn’t much to say, and what there was, he didn’t feel like going into with anybody.

“Jeez, I’m sorry,” she said. “You want a glass of water or something?”

“Or something.” He held his glass up and tilted it.

“Joe, you should go home.”

“I will. Just one or two more to settle me down.” He flashed a smile, probably his best feature after his eyes. It was warm, inviting, and unassuming.

Joe’s smile came easier when he was drinking, which was far too often. A hard-drinking trial lawyer in New York City was nothing out of the ordinary, and over a twenty-five-year career he had mostly maintained functionality. But the last few years had devastated him. His forty-sixth birthday, four years before, was one he had almost spent in jail after hearing from a divorce lawyer that his wife was leaving him. A cop who remembered him from the Bronx DA’s office had prevented the arrest, so Joe had ended up in a cab instead of a squad car.

Professional failure mirrored that of his marriage the same year, 2013. His small law practice dissolved, and his partner, Jack, nearly sued him over a string of booze-fueled fuckups. Before that happened, though, they scored a terrific settlement in a products liability case. In the end, Joe’s partner had been decent about money, and Joe walked away with plenty. Because of that, Joe was able to make one very smart purchase—a beautiful house in a great neighborhood. The bad thing was that Joe wasn’t motivated to work much for the next year and a half. In fact, he didn’t remember much about the next year and a half. Most of the leftover money disappeared quickly.

It was a combination of dwindling bank accounts and some character that got him moving again. Like in his early days as a prosecutor, he was back in government, this time for the New York State Office of the Attorney General. An old supervisor from the Bronx was now a bureau chief there and had hired him as an assistant attorney general in 2015. Given his age at the time—forty-eight—and his history, the opportunity was as much a lifeline as it was a job.