Trace of Innocence (4 page)

Harry’s eyes widened.

“Do you know who Frank Quinn is?”

I waited while the name registered.

“The mob boss. Frank Quinn. He’s my father. You ever hear of him?”

He nodded. In fact, very few people in New York and New Jersey
didn’t
know who my father was. One of the last of the old-time mobsters.

“Yeah…Billie
Quinn.
That Quinn. Just means that me calling the cops over this incident would be the absolute least of your problems.”

His bottom lip quivered, and he backed away. His eyes moved toward the gun, as if he wanted to take it back somehow.

“Leave it,” I ordered. He nodded, then turned on his heel and ran, his footsteps echoing in the garage. It was dark out, the moon just a tiny sliver.

When he was out of sight, I opened my car finally, and slid into the front seat, the smooth dark velour soothing to my touch. It was only then, as I took the keys and started to put them in the ignition, that I began trembling. My teeth chattered, and my hands shook so badly I couldn’t steady them enough to hold the keys. I leaned my head forward and felt tears drop from my face onto the steering wheel. What had Lewis gotten us into?

“C
ollect call for Billie Quinn. To accept the charges, say yes at the tone,” a mechanized female voice spoke. I waited for the tone and said yes.

“Hey, little sis.”

“Hey, Michael. How’s the inside treating you?”

“Two months and three days to go on my sentence. But who the fuck is counting, right?”

I laughed, hearing the cacophony of male voices in the background. “How’s your roommate?”

“You always make it sound like I’m off at college…or camp. My
cell-
mate? He’s got two years to go, but he’s a mean gin rummy player. I’m into him for two cartons of cigarettes. But I’ll earn it back.”

“Even on the inside, you’re always working the angle, Mikey.”

“Always, baby. Always…God…” He paused. “It’s good to hear your voice. How’s Pop?”

“Daddy…you know, he’s good. He’s eating his way through the state of New Jersey—everything he missed while he was inside. Italian subs from Vito’s, Aunt Helen’s cheesecakes, the pub’s burgers with fries and onion rings.”

“You’re making me hungry. I
think
we had Salisbury steak for dinner, but I can’t be positive. The gravy had the consistency of Alpo.”

My stomach churned at the thought.

“How was his homecoming party?”

“Awesome. Ended in a bar fight.”

“As only the Quinns’ parties can. That’s the sign it was really good.”

“It was the Murphy brothers.”

“Shit.” He sighed. “Poor Marybeth. Would you check on her for me?”

“Sure thing.”

“You hear from Uncle Sean?”

“Yeah. I visited him a couple of weeks ago.
Brought him a picture of his Caddy. He misses the car more than me, I think.”

“The fucking maroon land tank?”

“Yeah. He’s okay. I promised him I’d drive up to visit him next month, too.”

“Courtesy of the Quinn men, Billie, you’ve seen the inside of every prison from southern New Jersey to Dannemora.”

“Dannemora is the worst. I feel like I’m going back to some medieval torture castle when I drive there.” The Dannemora prison rose like a fortress in the mist in upstate New York.

“I’m sorry, Billie.”

“For what, Mikey?”

“Everything. We should be protecting you, watching out for you. And we’re all always on the inside, and you’re alone. Spending your weekends driving to visiting hours and walking through metal detectors to make sure you ain’t bringing us a file so we can escape.”

“I’m a big girl. What else am I going to do with my weekends?”

“I have one word for you, Billie. A rather radical idea—it’s called
dating.
”

“Well, I am sort of seeing Jack again. Though he’s pretty well sick of the fact that I spend my weekends visiting prisons, and I’m knee-deep in PCR tests and lab procedures.
Then again, he’s a cop with a ton of baggage, so maybe we’re a good match.”

“You deserve a life, Billie. And this time, when I get out, I promise to keep my nose clean.”

I looked at the picture on my coffee table of me, my long black hair pulled into a ponytail, wearing faded Levi’s and a white T-shirt, no makeup, summer freckles on my suntanned face; Mikey, in jeans and a denim jacket, his black curly hair in need of a trim, his dimples cut deep into the hollows of his cheeks, his arm wrapped around my shoulder, head cocked to one side, lopsided grin as if he knew a funny story he was just dying to tell you; and Dad in his regulation orange prison jumpsuit, his hair cut prison short, graying at the temples, his face still unlined despite the life he lived.

“Mike,” I sighed. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

He was silent. “You mad at me?”

“For what? Being who you are…? No, Mikey. I’ve never been mad at you for that. I’m not mad at Daddy. I’m not mad at Uncle Sean. I just worry. I don’t want you to ever go back in, Mike. I miss you.” I swallowed hard and wiped at a stray tear in the corner of my eye.

“Listen, the line for the phone is long. Let me go. Love ya.”

“Love you, too,” I said, then hung up. I looked around my apartment. A small one-bedroom, it boasted fourteen-foot ceilings with crown molding and wood floors. Were I a yuppie, I am sure the place would have looked fantastic with trendy furniture. Instead, it’s an eclectic mix and match—homey and comfortable, but without any definitive style. My coffee table belonged to my uncle Mack—he’s serving nine years in Sing Sing for racketeering. I had a really beautiful dining room table, too big for the space, which was where I ate and where I worked at night sometimes. Desk and table all in one. It was a beautiful cherrywood, from my cousin Joey, who had to leave town in a hurry. “I’ll buy new when I come back,” he’d said.

I had a nice television. I wasn’t sure if it was bought legally or not. My dad gave it to me, and I’ve found it’s much easier on my stress level to just not ask where his gifts come from. There’s usually no taking them back—no receipts.

A few chewed cat toys were strewn on the Oriental rug that once belonged to Uncle Sean. My cat, a Siamese named Raphael, came over to me and slid against my leg, purring.

“Hey, baby,” I whispered and bent down to
pick him up. I stood and walked over to the wall unit. It was cluttered with Quinn family memories. Every available spot of shelf space boasted a picture frame—photo after photo of my family—extended cousins and uncles included.

I went to one picture that was always front and center. My mother smiled out from the middle of the photo, Mikey on one side of her, me on the other. Her smile was openmouthed, as if my father, the photographer, had caught her midlaugh. She had on rose-colored lipstick, her hair long and framing her face. High cheekbones, blue eyes slightly upturned at the corners. My father never got over her death. I suppose none of us has.

My mother disappeared when I was nine. At first, the police wouldn’t even investigate it because there was no proof she’d been abducted. They thought she had simply tired of being the wife of a mobster and had walked away. Eventually, they decided perhaps she had met with foul play, but by then the case was cold. And it wasn’t until six months later that her body was found. A chain was around her body’s neck—a neck that by that time was only bone. The case was never solved.

How would I feel, I wondered, if we found her killer after all these years, only to watch the sys
tem release him? In that moment, I knew. Lewis was my best friend, and I was all for freeing an innocent man—if he was innocent. But I was going to have to meet David Falco myself. Face-to-face. I was going to have to look him in the eye before I stirred up the ghost of a murdered woman.

I
rolled over in bed and, sighing, stared at my digital clock. Midnight. I couldn’t sleep.

Slipping out of bed, I pulled on my robe and padded into the dining area where I fired up my laptop at the table. I logged on to the Internet.

Out of the forty e-mails I’d gotten since the last time I’d checked, ten were spam. Fifteen were from my sometime boyfriend Jack; some were sexy messages telling me what he planned to do to me the next time we were together. One was from Mikey—he got to log on to e-mail every once in a while at prison. A couple were
from Lewis. One was a ridiculous joke, solidifying my belief that he was several cornflakes short of a full bowl.

I clicked on my browser and plugged in “suicide king murder.” Site after site showed up—crime Web sites. The Internet, I’ve discovered, besides being a playground for porn fans, is also filled with rabid fans of gore. The bloodier, the better.

I clicked on a picture of David Falco. He was wearing a prison jumpsuit in court. Lawyering 101 says have your defendant show up in a suit and tie. You can ask the judge if that’s all right, and I’d never known a judge not to say a suit was allowed. Yet another example of his incompetent lawyer. I searched through the Internet for information on the case. The more I read, the more weary I got of the violence. I turned off the computer and opened my fridge. I poured myself a vodka on the rocks and drank it fast. I wanted to fall asleep. More than that, I didn’t want to dream.

Because in my life, dreams usually lead to nightmares.

I don’t know how C.C. does it every day. It’s bad enough I visit prisons on the weekend. They remind me, most times, of the way I imagine insane asylums were two centuries ago. It
isn’t the drab walls and bars that bother me as much as the sounds of human misery.

When you walk into a prison, you hear the screams and yells of men in pain—either physically or mentally, or both. They scream because they don’t want to be there, they moan and yell because they’re crazy but aren’t getting any psychiatric help, and they fill the air with filth—curses and expletives—because they torment each other with it. The entire experience is unnerving.

Three days later, after Harry’s drop-by, I was ushered into a small conference room reserved for lawyers and clients. I waited a short time, and David Falco was shown into the room.

His pictures didn’t show how tall he was—about six feet. He had the build of a quarterback, athletic but not hugely muscular. He averted his eyes as he slid into the chair opposite me. The guard left his handcuffs on and said, “I’ll be in the hall.”

“Hi, David.” I smiled.

He nodded. His file told me he was thirty.

“I know C.C. told you we’re taking on your case. Joe Franklin will be your new defense attorney. The wheels of justice grind slowly, so I can’t say when you might expect results or even if we’ll win. But you have my word we’ll be relentless.”

He was still physically beautiful. But his eyes had dark circles under them. I don’t know how anyone sleeps in prison. You either learn to shut out the noise or you’re perpetually sleep deprived. Or both.

“So what’s your side of the story?”

He shrugged.

I knew that convicts closed themselves off. You had to do it to survive if you were a long-timer. The short-timers like my brother, my dad…they usually just got by with humor, making a few friends. But the long-timers were a different breed. I tried to imagine being in my twenties and drawing a life sentence—and being innocent. It would seem like a bad dream. A horror movie.

“Look…I know C.C. told you about me and Lewis. But I don’t know if she told you who I am. Who I really am.”

He looked down at the table. “I know who you are.”

“Then you know about my mother. Look…I became a criminalist so that I could put the bad guys behind bars. I’ve never been involved in a case like yours. I never cared. I run a PCR test. I take a tiny little microscopic sample of human tissue, and I run tests. But I never put a face or a story to a sample before. And now…now Joe
and C.C. came to Lewis and me. And they told us about you. But I have to see for myself, hear for myself, your story. Or I can’t do this.”

David Falco was quiet for a minute or two. Then he spoke slowly, carefully. “I told the story so many times, and it got me these.” He held up shackled hands.

“But this time if you tell it,” I whispered, “it might get you out of those.”

His hands rested on the table, and I reached across and put my hand over the top of one of his. I gently squeezed and then withdrew. He clenched his jaw at my touch, and I just sat back and waited.

He stared down at the table, fixating on a spot. His eyes sort of glazed over, and he began to talk.

“I met this girl at a bar. I was working as a mason. A bricklayer. Followed in my grandfather’s footsteps. He died after I came here. Anyway…saw her a time or two. She was…screwed up. Troubled. We never slept together. I…I was looking for a girlfriend, a relationship. Not a one-night stand. But I liked her, and I wanted to help her figure her life out.”

I didn’t take notes. I just listened. Jack, my sometime boyfriend the cop, said taking notes made people self-conscious. They froze up, and
I was certain if I took notes I wouldn’t get the full story the same way I would if Falco was relaxed.

“Go on,” I urged.

“Anyway, I’m hanging out at her house with her, after she got off work. This guy shows up. Never saw him before. Didn’t give his name. I don’t even have a good description. He was just average. Everything about him was average.”

The way he said it, I knew that David Falco realized he was not average. He was very beautiful, and it had probably been a blessing and a curse his whole life. Outside, it had probably been a blessing. In here, a curse.

“Anyway,” he said softly, “I just got this weird vibe. Like these two were into head games with each other, and I was just…being used by her. She kept calling him tough guy—not using a name. Mocking him. So I said I was tired and got up and left. I was there maybe five minutes with them. On the way out of her apartment, I passed a married couple coming home from a night out. They said hi. They id’d me the next day when her body was found.”

“Can you articulate what was weird about them? About Cammie and this guy?”

“Articulate?”

“Explain.”

“I know what it means. Just don’t hear many big words in this place.”

I smiled at him. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s been a long time since I was treated like anything other than a dog in a cage…. I’m not sure what was so weird. I don’t know. I mean…he stared at her like he hated her. And she was saying all this double-entendre stuff. Like implying he was inadequate in bed. I don’t even remember. I was a little drunk, but I just felt like there was something going on there, and I didn’t want to be around it. I wish now I’d never met her.”

“Did you feel like…something sexual, like they wanted to involve you in something?”

He didn’t speak for a minute or two, then he just gave me a single nod. “Maybe,” he whispered.

“And you didn’t want anything to do with that.” I said it as a statement.

David Falco looked up at me. “No. In my whole life, I’ve been with three women. My high school girlfriend, a woman I met through my sister and a girlfriend who broke up with me maybe four months before the murder.”

I found it hard to believe. My eyes probably expressed that.

“I swear to you. I was always a one-woman man. And I just didn’t get into kinky shit.” He smiled at me. “And to be honest, now it’s been so long since I was with a woman, I can hardly remember.” His smile was a little shy. And sad. “Anyway, this girl, Cammie, she had a dark side. Honest to God, I was trying to listen, to be a friend to her.”

“Dark side, how?”

“I don’t know. She was a bartender at this place I stopped in once in a while if I was working a job that way. We’d talk and later at night, when the place got quiet, she’d say things to me, like, ‘You’re so good, and I’m so fucked up.’ But when I tried to tell her that she wasn’t, that she could turn her life around, her eyes would well up, then she’d make a joke or something, or she’d go down to the other end of the bar.”

“So why was she saying she was screwed up?”

“I never found out, but it always sounded big, like…something evil, or something really, really dark. I just felt kind of bad for her, this beautiful girl with some bad secret.”

“Did any of this come out in the trial?”

He looked at me and shook his head. “My lawyer wasn’t really interested in anything except maybe pleading me down to murder two.”

“Can you think of any reason…any connection she might have had, to the suicide king playing card?”

“No. And trust me, I’ve had a long time to think about that. Nothing. I draw a blank every time.”

“Did she use drugs that you know of?”

“No.”

“Can you think of any reason why someone might try to frame you?”

“No. Look…before this, I was an ordinary guy. This has been like a nightmare I never wake up from. When I was first put in jail, I would have this split second every morning when I would think, for just this moment, that it had all been a dream. I’d be waking up with thoughts of taking the dog for a walk, and then I’d hear something, like some guy in the next cell, and I’d realize where I was. I wouldn’t want to open my eyes.”

I watched him as he spoke, his eyes radiating grief.

“I wanted to kill myself. I lost my will to live. I had a life, a job, parents who loved me, a grandfather who believed in me and taught me a skill. I had my painting, my dog.”

“What kind of dog?” I asked, maybe for a minute looking to extend his memories and take him out of that prison.

“Oh.” He grinned. “The biggest, sloppiest mastiff you ever saw. Name was Gunther.”

“I have a cat. Siamese named Raphael. When I was a kid, my brother and I had a golden retriever named Honey.” I didn’t mention we got her after my mom died, to make us less afraid to go to sleep at night.

“After I got in here, my grandfather took care of my dog. ‘Just till you come home,’ he said. And then Gunther died. And then my grandfather died.” He choked off a sob. “Do you believe I’m innocent?”

I nodded. I did. “C.C. is convinced of it. She says you’ve earned a college degree since you’ve been in here. Says she can tell you’re, how’d she put it? Pure of soul. Says your writing is amazing. I’d like to read some of it sometime.”

“After maybe a year, I went from suicidal to numb. And then I realized I’d have to find something to make me get out of that bunk every morning or I’d be living this horror show in excruciating detail until I finally died—alone. So I forced myself to take a correspondence course, to write letters to my parents. My dad’s still alive. My mother got cancer three years ago and passed away. But my dad, he’s the one who contacted C.C. and Joe. Anyway, it’s not the exis
tence I want, but it’s better—that being a relative term in this place. I try to picture myself as a monastic.”

“A monk?”

“Yeah. I pray every morning. Buddhism. I meditate. I let my meditation take me away from here. But I just choose not to see a prison—to see a monastic life instead. I stay Zen. But I’d still give anything to walk out of here.” His eyes were moist.

“I’ll try.”

I stood and called for the guard. David stood and started to leave the room. In the doorway, he turned and said, “Thank you.” Then he left. I gathered my briefcase and walked down the corridor with a guard to the exit door, the bars clanging open, then shut behind me.

I’d met men—friends of my father—who had killed people and washed their hands and gone out for supper. But C.C. was right. Whatever happened the night of the suicide king murder, David Falco gave off the aura of a man who wouldn’t or couldn’t harm another living soul.