City Dark(83)

“He didn’t know in 1977 when he came to live with Mike. Neither of the boys knew; I’m sure of it. I assumed, though, at some point that . . .”

“That what?”

“That Mike told Joe he had a twin brother!”

“A twin brother,” Zochi said, as if the fact was weighing down her tongue. “Identical or fraternal?”

“Identical,” Nate said, again as if it was obvious. “Wait, I mean . . . no one knows about this?”

“Well, I don’t,” she said, a frustrated tone creeping into her voice. She checked it. She was tired. They were both tired.

“Okay,” Nate said, as if it could all be rationally dealt with—this chasm of a knowledge gap between the distant past and now. “So maybe Mike didn’t tell him? Did he not get to tell him?”

“I don’t know,” she said, genuinely bewildered. “You mentioned the AIDS thing earlier. I know Mike died of that, and—” She held up a finger as if to ask him to wait, then fished for another notepad in her bag. Her heartbeat quickened as she thumbed through it. She had experienced maybe two or three moments like this in more than twenty years on the job. It was different and more powerful than that golden “gotcha” instant when a perp gave himself away with something dropped from his mouth like windfall fruit. It was better than the eminently satisfying moment in a good, fair interrogation when the poor bastard just broke down, sobbing, and admitted to what he’d done—diddling his niece or offing his boss. Nate was not a guilty party. Still, Zochi was feeling that same electrifying, game-changing sensation.

“Joe told me his uncle died before they could speak,” she said, scanning the older notes. “He was away on a trip and was called back. His uncle was in a coma and died a day later.”

“Oh, dear God.”

“Let’s go back a bit,” she said, switching notepads again, “because I need to hear as much of this as possible. Charles is an identical twin to Joe?”

“Yes. Joe and Charles were born at the old Staten Island Hospital, on Castleton Avenue. The boys’ mother was Mike’s sister, Lois. What Mike told me was that there was some terrible in utero thing that happened. Charles, in the womb, was struggling somehow, and Joe kept growing. The doctors didn’t know. But at the moment of birth, it was obvious. Joe came out first and looked like a healthy baby. Charles came out next and was underweight. Sick. Cyanotic, I think, like they had to revive him? I don’t know every detail. From what Mike told me, they had to do all kinds of tests. The child made it out of intensive care but never out of institutional care.”

“Do you know where he was institutionalized?”

“Eventually? Willowbrook,” he said. She raised her eyebrows, and he said, “Yes, that Willowbrook. The state school. It wasn’t far from the hospital.”

“The one they shut down,” she said. “The one that . . . whatshisname did a big story on.”

“Geraldo Rivera, in the early ’70s. The Staten Island Advance covered it earlier than that. It was known that conditions were bad there, but not everyone knew how bad. Mike Carroll was one of them.”

“Then why would the parents put him there?”

“From what Mike told me, Lois’s husband made that decision. Lois fought it, but there wasn’t much use in fighting that guy, or so I heard. He more or less abandoned the kid to Willowbrook, then moved the family out of Staten Island. Charles was about three. He would have been left at Willowbrook, but . . . Mike took action.”

“Action? What action?”

“He got Charles out of Willowbrook under an assumed name,” Nate said. He shrugged, as if this sounded so crazy it needed that kind of gesture to follow it up.

“What?”

“I can only relay what he told me, but Mike Carroll knew people. I mean, Mike knew everyone. If you were in social services, in the Staten Island medical community, in the disability community, whatever—Mike knew you. Staten Island was a lot smaller then.”

“So what are you telling me?”

“That Mike Carroll did something illegal—really illegal—although I think he was right to do it. It was before my time with him, but this is what I remember. Lois’s husband—the boys’ father—was a cruel man. He wanted Charles behind him, in state care, and he wanted a new life. He wouldn’t let Lois visit Charles. It was like he was dead. That’s how Mike described it to me. As far as the father was concerned, there were two boys, not three.”

“Okay.”

“So Mike worked his connections. By ’71 or ’72, the family had moved away. That left Mike to do what he could for Charles. I have no idea if he’s still alive. If he is, I’m sure he’s under the assumed name.”

“Which was?”

“Caleb Evermore,” Nate said. He spelled out the last name. “I was reminded of it a little while ago, going through some old photos.”

“I don’t get it, though. How did Charles become someone named Caleb Evermore?”

“Mike knew staff at Willowbrook. Good people, exhausted people. He also knew people at a much better rehab facility. It was more appropriate for Charles’s disability, anyway. Mike knew the boy needed round-the-clock care, and probably always would. So he made things happen. Records got changed. Names. A kid who was Charles DeSantos, maybe, probably got listed as deceased. Then another kid around the same age popped up with this other name, Caleb Evermore. Orphaned. He was in one facility, but he really needed to move to this other facility. That’s all Mike needed. He couldn’t have changed things for a kid with involved parents, but he could do all sorts of things for a kid who was alone.”