Trace Of Innocence

“I’m going to pretend none of this ever happened, Harry.”

He had thrown up on the cement of the garage floor, and slowly regained his breath. With much grimacing he returned to standing position and looked me in the eye.

“Shoot me. Go ahead. Without Cammie, none of it matters.”

“Don’t tempt me, Harry.” The gun in my hand was steady.

“You going to call the police?”

I shook my head.

“How come?” He looked shocked.

“Because, Harry…in the still of the night, I know what it’s like to wonder who murdered someone I loved. My mother was murdered, Harry. And her killer was never caught. So I get what you feel. I get that the last thought before you fall asleep, the first thought when you wake, is, ‘What happened to Cammie?’ To the point where you can’t remember what she was like alive. She’s a body in the morgue to you. She’s someone screaming in the night for help. But I can tell you, Harry…putting away the wrong man isn’t going to raise her from the dead. So your gun is staying here with me. Go get in your car. And if I ever see you around here again, I won’t hesitate to kill you.”

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?

Chapter 5

“Collect 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 system 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.

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