City Dark(94)

He raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, it was.” The police response to Robbie’s apartment that morning—when he was found electrocuted in the bathtub—began as a fire department call. A laptop computer on a desk had caught fire, apparently from inside the device itself. A computer forensics examiner would have to see if anything was salvageable, but at the scene it didn’t look likely.

Robbie was found half-submerged in the bathtub, dead of electric shock in what was either a strange accident or an apparent suicide. To Len it looked very much like the latter. It was a bold move, taking oneself out like that, but probably quick. The bathwater had absorbed most of the energy, even as it shocked Robbie DeSantos into oblivion, but the extension cord he used to avoid the ground fault interrupter in the bathroom had melted all the way back to the living room wall. At the wall outlet was a huge black spot. Between that and the smoldering guts of the laptop, smoke alarms had gone off.

“There’s one more connection to make sense of,” Zochi said. “The phones will connect Robbie to Evan Bolds, even if they’re burners. We can establish that Robbie provided Bolds with blood from Joe’s twin, the guy at the rehab place. Bolds was the hands-on killer, the one who left the inscriptions behind and dropped the blood.”

Len crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. “Fuckin’ unbelievable.”

“Yeah. There’s a link missing, though.”

He looked over. “What?”

“I don’t think Robbie found Evan Bolds and got him to do all of this stuff. I think it’s more like Evan Bolds found him. That doesn’t make any sense, though. I mean, why? Why does a loser ex-con like Bolds look up some other loser and then agree to set up a murder spree with him?”

“Maybe DeSantos knows something, since Bolds was his case. He’s getting released, right?”

“Yeah, this week sometime, as long as everything checks out. I’ll talk to Mimi Bromowitz in the morning.”

“You should catch a few hours’ sleep here, before you drive back.”

“Nah, gotta get back to my kid. Traffic’s light; I’ll be all right.”

“It’s one for the books, Zoch,” he said, putting out his hand. She shook it and grinned at him, the reddish glow of the declining sun in her eyes.





CHAPTER 73


Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Anna M. Kross Center, Rikers Island

East River in the Bronx

9:58 a.m.

“I have two last things to show you,” Aideen said after explaining the remarkable events of the previous forty-eight hours. “I’ll start with the easy one.” She handed him her cell phone, teed up to play a ten-second video from the 111 Centre Street surveillance clip. Máiréad had compressed it for her and loaded it onto her phone. Joe watched as Evan Bolds slipped the baggie into one of the thick brown case folders.

“The Reggie card,” he said, just above a whisper.

“Yes.”

“And . . . he got it from Lois?”

“Almost certainly, yes. When she was found, she was carrying that leather-bound planner thing. I’ll bet it was in there. Hathorne probably knew and told Bolds to look for it. It would have been a great way to psych you out.”

“It worked.” He was quiet for a few seconds. “Hathorne. We can’t prove he was behind this, can we?”

“Not yet, but I’m onto that son of a bitch.”

Joe was taken aback. There was fire in her eyes, more than he had ever seen before. In a way it was funny; as angry as Aideen was, his heart felt lighter. He was disarmed by the love and support that still surrounded him, even when he seemed to deserve it the least.

“Hathorne’s hard to pin down,” he said.

“I’m sure he thinks he is. The burned-up laptop isn’t searchable, but I’m sure Hathorne gave it to Robbie through Bolds.”

Joe nodded. “It’s something Hathorne would know exactly how to do—cause it to self-destruct like something out of a James Bond film. He’ll get away with this, believe me.”

“Hmm, we’ll see,” she said, her voice rising in pitch. The fire had been replaced, in a flash, by something wicked and conspiratorial. It was the prankster side of her he hadn’t seen in a long time.

Joe gave her a questioning look. “What am I missing?”

“Nothing,” she said, feigning ignorance and innocence. “Craig’s been working on something. Let’s let him work on it.”

“Craig? What is it? What’s he doing?”

“Don’t worry about that right now,” she said, shaking her head and waving away the topic. “You’ve got other things to think about, Joe.” With that, she paused for a long moment, then reached for an envelope in her briefcase. “I received something from the pastor who worked with Lois in California.”

The cream-colored business envelope was addressed to Aideen Bradigan, Esq. In the upper left-hand corner was a cross logo beside the return address: Tahoe Park Grace Lutheran Church, Sacramento, CA. Joe’s hands trembled as he removed the contents. There were two letters, one neatly typed on church stationery in the same cream color as the envelope and one that was handwritten on ruled paper, the kind schoolkids used.

The letter from Pastor Suzanne Nelson to Aideen Bradigan, Esq., was clipped and brief—not particularly warm. She wrote a few kind things about Lois and made it clear that she and the other women at the church would miss her dearly and were devastated to hear of her loss. The letter went on to say that the substance of her interaction with Lois—the things Lois felt, spoke of, and sought counseling for—was confidential and privileged and therefore could not be discussed with anyone. However, there was a handwritten letter she was in possession of from Lois to her son Joseph. The letter had started off as an assignment of sorts, a writing project for Lois to work on as part of other therapeutic work, the details of which could not be shared. The pastor was satisfied, however, that the message was now enough of an independent writing for it to be offered to Joe. “I am gratified to hear of your client’s apparent exoneration in this matter,” the letter concluded, “and I trust you will direct this final message to him and him alone.” It was signed “Yours in Christ.”