City Dark(41)

“Gotcha. Does he use credit cards?”

“He says he did on at least one of the nights. There’re probably cameras, too, at the place I went by. It’s a neighborhood place, not a dive. Maybe the bartenders can help. That’s what my guy over there is running down. I’ll have it all sorted before I come back on.”

“And no activity with the car after the time he says he parked? For either night?”

“Nope. No tolls. Nothing on the license plate. No evidence he left the island on those nights, at least not in his car.”

“Okay. What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Len said thoughtfully. “Could this guy Robbie have a motive for the mother? Sure, same as Joe. The girl, though? I don’t see it. He says he only knew her as Joe’s old girlfriend. Saw her once, never talked to her. That was the day after we found Joe, when she went over there and the two of them went to ID the old lady.”

“So he didn’t seem to know anything about the girlfriend? Holly?”

“Not at all, but maybe that’s bullshit and he was fixated on her or something. Just talkin’ out loud here.”

“That’s all we have right now,” Zochi said. “We’ll see what we can confirm on his whereabouts. I’m with you, though—Joe’s a better suspect in terms of motive. Definitely opportunity.”

“We gotta rule the brother out,” Len said. “The DA’s gonna want that. I like Joe for both, though. Kinda sad. He seems like an okay guy. Like a sad sack, not a killer, you know?”

“I know, right?” she said, her eyes drifting back across the street. The dealer was on the move again, walking toward a car stopped in front of the deli. Zochi cursed under her breath and gave her siren a quick squawk, something cops called a “whoop.” The seller looked up, and she gave him a double thumbs-up to shoo him away. He shrugged and walked in the other direction as the car sped off. “He seems decent, but maybe he goes psycho on the bottle and doesn’t know he’s doing it.”

“Oh yeah, like on the murder channel!” Len seemed cheerful at the thought of it. “My wife loves that shit.”

“We’ll grab it eventually. You know, I thought one thing was weird.”

“What?”

“Wilomena, the homeless woman, noticed it.”

“Yeah?”

“I found her earlier today,” Zochi said. “By the Medicaid office on Twenty-First. I was asking about the bra. The inscription on it.”

“Oh, yeah, to see if she recognized it or anything. Long shot.”

“Yeah, she didn’t know anything about the letters. She did notice something, though. She said Lois didn’t have a bra on that night.”

“Okay.”

“Well, it’s weird, right?”

“What, no bra?”

“Yeah, think about it. An old lady is found on the beach, bra wrapped around her neck. So it looks like a strangulation thing, but then you get closer and realize someone snapped her neck. Then you find out from an eyewitness that she wasn’t even wearing a bra. And that’s backed up by the fact that the bra wouldn’t have fit her anyway.”

“Right. So why’s the bra there?”

“That’s the thing. If Wilomena is right, Lois DeSantos wasn’t wearing a bra that night, and the one found wrapped around her neck wasn’t hers.”

“It had those letters written on it, though,” Len said. It sounded like he was munching on something.

“Yeah, so I’m wondering if someone placed it there.” She put a stress on placed. “I mean, if that’s the case, then it changes things, right? It’s not really a crime-of-passion thing. It’s not some keyed-up psycho who snaps and finishes her off with her own clothes, like pantyhose or a bra.”

“Whoa,” Len said. “When you say ‘placed,’ you mean the bra was put there, like a staged kind of thing?”

“Staged,” she said. “Yeah, that’s the word I was looking for. What if it was?”

“Shit,” Len said. “It complicates things. I mean, why stage something if you’re Joe DeSantos and you’re out of your mind on booze and you just want her dead?”

“No idea. Maybe it sends a message? There was an inscription on the bra—those letters we found. Maybe Joe didn’t just want her dead. Maybe he also wanted to leave something behind for someone to make sense of.”

“For who to make sense of?”

“No idea. Let me know when you confirm Robbie’s alibi. We’ll go from there.”





CHAPTER 36


New York State Attorney General’s Office

Lower Manhattan

6:55 p.m.

Joe brought one Jameson whiskey box to pack up the things he was going to bring home from the office. He had never kept much there. No framed photos. No degrees on the wall. Just a paperweight, some extra ties, and a spare pair of dress shoes. It was a little before seven in early August, so the office was empty. That was good—the last thing he wanted was awkward goodbyes or good lucks from any of his coworkers. The few he was closest to had anticipated his exit and sent him some nice thoughts. It was an office he would dearly miss, and the work had given him another couple of years he never believed he’d get. But it was over. He was about to start filling the box when he heard an all-too-familiar voice talking on a cell phone and projecting from down the hall. He sighed.