City Dark(27)

“Fuck you, Vera! This shit ain’t over!” a young man screamed, stomping into the hallway and tossing court papers behind him. He then winged a cell phone down the polished tile floor of the hallway like it was a skipping stone. Three uniformed men from the Office of Court Administration, or OCA, took notice. One barked into his radio while the other two chased the phone thrower down.

A sobbing woman, visibly pregnant, walked out from the same courtroom a few seconds later and bent over to pick up the discarded papers. She was carrying her own fat file of legal paperwork and looked like she might fall over. Joe and Ben both called out to her. “Miss, please!” and “Whoa, lady, hang on!” were overlaid on each other. The two men gathered the papers and pointed her toward the elevator. In the distance, the phone thrower bellowed like a bear in a trap as he was subdued.

“Will they arrest him?” Ben asked, brushing his hands clean.

“Nah, not as long as he shuts up,” Joe said. “If OCA had to collar every guy who acted like that in family court, they’d be doing nothing else.” From the pile of paperwork on the bench, he pulled out the reports for Ben and handed them over. Beside the two men, Evan Bolds continued to stare like nothing remotely disturbing had just taken place. That’s prison, Joe thought. He’s used to ignoring outbursts.

“Mr. Bolds, let’s go,” Ben said. “I’ll show you where you’ll need to report next.” Bolds rose, poised to follow him. He had an almost robotic air about him, something between an impeccably mannered child and an obsequious servant.

“Okay,” he said. Ben and Joe shook hands, ready to part. Then Bolds turned to Joe. “Um, you have a good day too, Mr. DeSantos.” Joe looked back at him quizzically. Most guys in Bolds’s position didn’t talk to the other side’s lawyer.

“You too, sir,” Joe said. He winked at Ben and turned away.

Next stop was for a hot dog. It was almost three o’clock, and Joe hadn’t eaten anything all day. He waited a solid minute for an elevator; the ones at 111 Centre Street were notoriously slow. A crowded one arrived, and Joe stepped in as he riffled through the Bolds file again. He frowned at the messiness, knowing he’d have to reorganize it at the office. He had done little with the case file since right after Lois’s body had been found. It had been an unproductive week.

Booze filled, more like it.

The elevator came to a stop, paused for another aching moment, and slid open. The echo-laden noise of the courthouse lobby and some fresh air billowed in. Joe was about to pull his hand from the folder when his fingers brushed plastic. He fished out a small ziplock bag with something that looked like a postcard or a photograph inside. When he glanced at the thing in the bag, his breath caught in his throat. People were already pushing out behind him, forcing him into the tributary of the courthouse exit that fed the river of humanity that was Lower Manhattan. The thing in the baggie wasn’t a postcard or an old photograph; it was an old, rather flimsy-looking baseball card.

Hostess.

Reggie Jackson.

1977.





CHAPTER 24


Office of the Attorney General, Sex Offender Management Bureau

Lower Manhattan

3:26 p.m.

The baseball card was still in the ziplock bag on Joe’s desk, as if somehow keeping it in there would contain its effect. There were a dozen things he wanted to do with it, from clawing it free and sobbing with his face buried in it to burning it, bag and all. There was the fleeting, vague idea of having it “tested” somehow, for something, but that was nonsense.

Stop with the dumb ideas. Think. Where did this come from?

He tried to focus on when he had handled the file last, but that was maddeningly fuzzy. The fact was, he had gotten the case brand new from the Office of Mental Health right before his big hearing on Aaron Hathorne’s case. That was the same week of the fortieth anniversary of the blackout and Lois’s disappearance. The file had traveled with him upstate to the hearing—he figured he’d have time to look it over on the train—then back home, where it eventually made its way to the office. He’d been drunk more than sober during that whole period, though, and couldn’t remember how much he had actually rummaged through it. His eyes crept back over to the baggie again, and he winced. It was a sick irony: he had no idea how this little prize had reappeared in a work folder and yet had the clearest recollection of when he’d last seen it.

She grabbed it after Robbie sent it flying out the window. He could see them again, Robbie and his mother, standing by the faded maroon LTD in the last of the light, their faces reflecting an orange tint from the Jersey side. Lois wore blue jeans, gray tennis shoes, and a sleeveless blouse—something pink, he remembered. He saw again the fear in her eyes, the awful weight of stress and uncertainty.

“Give it, Joe. Now.”

He remembered the bullheaded, frustrated feeling of losing control over his favorite thing, especially after the miracle of finding it on the highway. Still, there had been security in it. That’s what mothers provided. The card wasn’t, for the time being, his to finger and twirl, but it wouldn’t disappear either. His mother had it, and it was safe, away from his brother, away from the elements, away from the city. It would warm in her back pocket for a few hours. He just needed to remind her it was there before she put the jeans in the wash, wherever they ended up.