City Dark(43)

“Of course. Jesus, he did that from behind bars for years!”

“Yeah, but . . .” Joe trailed off and ran his hand through his hair. “I mean, yeah, he made contact with a few other assholes like him. So?”

“He’s behind this somehow. He’s setting you up. I know it. And I know you know it.” There was a long pause.

“But even if . . .” Joe trailed off.

“Even if what? Find out.”

“Find out how? I’m about to be indicted. I need a lawyer, boss, not a conspiracy theory.”

“I have an idea about a lawyer.”

“Me too. I’ve got plenty of names in my head, but—”

“Aideen Bradigan,” Craig said. Joe was taken aback. Joe hadn’t spoken to her, other than via the occasional text, since the long process of her husband’s death and funeral the previous fall. She seemed to be doing well, but as far as he knew, she had no plans to return to legal practice, let alone as a defense attorney.

“Aideen? What about her?”

“She needs something to do. Like defending you and getting to the bottom of this.” Craig said all this as if he were proposing that Aideen pick up groceries for Joe on the way home. “And she’s better than both of us put together.”

“She’s in early retirement. The city gave her a good settlement.”

“She says she is, but she doesn’t want to be. She needs this. Have I been wrong before? I mean, you know, about really big stuff?”

Joe sighed. “Not that I remember, no.”

“There you go.” Craig met Joe’s gaze, all the clownishness dropped. “Look, I know you didn’t do these things. Fight like you didn’t.”

“I have to believe it really wasn’t me before I can do that.” It was almost a whisper.

“It wasn’t. I know it wasn’t.”

“I wish I believed that,” Joe said. He was breathing in gulps, trying not to crack. “I wish I believed it like you do.”

“My youngest,” Craig said after a long pause. Joe pictured Craig’s son Victor, who at eleven lived with a host of complex disabilities but was still a loving, mostly happy kid.

“Victor? What about him?”

“He’s a mess.”

“He’s a good kid.”

“He’s a mess,” Craig said. He pointed a long finger at Joe. “But he’s a great judge of character, and he’s always liked you. And don’t blow this off. He may be intellectually delayed, but his intuition is off the charts. He knows things. He’s always liked you.”

“I bring him candy. And I’m nice to your wife, and the cat, and—”

“Plenty of people do those things. But Victor likes you. He always has, since he was a toddler.”

“So?”

“So you’re not a murderer—of your mother, of a young woman, of anyone. Victor knows it. I know it. Prove it to the world.”

“Here’s the thing,” Joe said. He felt hope—an annoying sensation as much as it was life affirming—rising in his chest and pushing other things aside. He was set on staying miserable, and this was complicating matters. “Let’s say you’re right. Somehow, someway, Hathorne is behind this. If that’s really the case—that Aaron Hathorne has his tentacles out in the world, killing people—then I don’t want Aideen anywhere near him. I don’t want her in his sights, Craig. I don’t want that.”

“That would be her decision. Let her make it.”

“She’s in mourning!”

“She’s a grown woman,” Craig said. “She did this job, just like you. She’s seen all sorts of terrible things. And, anyway, I’m not sure Aideen mourns for long. About anything.”

“Oh, come on.”

“You come on. You know her as well as I do.”

“I know she’s . . .” Joe trailed off. He was looking for a retort, but, frankly, he didn’t have one. Yes, he knew Aideen. She was as tough as nails, but that was kind of a cliché. And, anyway, so were a lot of people who had come up in, and navigated, the New York legal environment. Still, Aideen’s strength was different. She was oddly nontemperamental. Nothing seemed to rattle her, but it went deeper than that. Her highs and lows were strangely close to one another. To Joe’s knowledge, she had grown up in a functional family, give or take. She had married a good cop who was now, tragically, dead. But through it all—the marriage, the shock of 9/11, the birth of the kids, and then her husband’s illness and death—she really hadn’t vacillated much up or down. It was like she had been born with a baseline emotional state and didn’t deviate from it.

So maybe she is the person to take on someone—something—like Hathorne, he thought. It was a tantalizing argument but one that another part of his mind wanted to demolish.

No, God, no. Don’t put her in his sights. If you go down for this, at least Hathorne will probably stop whatever he’s doing. He’ll be satiated.

“I can’t,” Joe said finally. “I can’t do that to her.”

“Okay, you’ll infantilize her instead,” Craig said with a mocking tone. This was the side of him that wasn’t pleasant. At worst, it was bludgeoning.