It is 1977, it is JUE-ly, and the Big Apple is hot, honey!
He struck an aluminum pole, first with his left foot and then his nose. He cursed and rubbed his face, the collision reigniting his perception. It was a sultry night, stinking mildly of the avenues and the bay beyond them. He was on a street that was nearly silent. No old car, no kids. His eyes cleared, then darkened.
It’s still with me.
His heart started to thud.
No. There’s light, see? Relax, it’s all around you. It’s 2017, not 1977. That was a dream. Or a hallucination. Or something.
His gaze, suspicious and uncertain, moved over cars, stoops, and doorways, then softened as he took in window boxes, clumps of pigeon droppings, trash cans, and cracks in the sidewalk. All were laid bare by sodium streetlights and bulbs in windows. His eyes feasted on them.
You’re in Brooklyn. You’re a lawyer. And everywhere there is light. You can see, and you’re not afraid.
He wasn’t afraid, but now he felt hypervigilant and antsy. To the left was his house, ornate and empty. To the right was a bar called Greeley’s. His addled but otherwise razor-sharp brain knew that the house—his bed—was the right way to go.
But Joe wasn’t done drinking.
CHAPTER 4
Riegelmann Boardwalk, Coney Island
1:01 a.m.
By the time an assistant district attorney arrived, professionals were hovering around the body, including two crime scene investigators who snapped photos and momentarily bathed the scene in harsh light from various angles. Zochi recognized the ADA as the chief of the sex crimes unit in Brooklyn: a woman in her midfifties named Mimi Bromowitz. Mimi approached in slacks and a golf shirt, flashing a badge to a couple of patrol officers nearby. She was tall and wiry, athletic looking, with flat brown hair in a tight bun. Zochi, like many people, had mistaken Mimi for a lesbian cop at their first meeting. In fact, she was a lesbian prosecutor, married to a woman who was an accountant. Through IVF, they had twin boys.
When she recognized Zochi, Mimi nodded and waved, then kneeled beside the corpse as a man and a woman from the medicolegal investigation unit prepared to seal it into a white body bag. The bag seemed fluorescent in the moonlight. Zochi could see that the dead woman’s face was still visible, only partly lost to the shadows below the zipper. She looked like she was cocooned in a sleeping bag, ready for bed.
“You the DA?” one of the MLI techs asked Mimi.
“I am.”
“Want to see her before we zip up?”
“Just from the neck up, thanks.” She studied the face and the neck, then said to no one in particular, “Do you see ligature marks?”
“We didn’t,” Zochi said, impressed that Mimi had picked up on those. “There’s a bra around her neck, just like you’re seeing, but I couldn’t make out any markings.”
“We’ll see what the ME says,” Mimi said. “Any obvious vaginal trauma?”
“No. Nothing inserted. No blood underneath her.”
“Gotcha,” Mimi said. Zochi followed her gaze as it lingered on the bra, still wrapped around the neck, then moved up to the head. The victim had a thin, angular face. Her cheeks looked crumpled and jowly, like the skin wanted to slide off either side. The nose seemed a little crooked. The eyes, like the mouth, were not quite closed, as if she’d been peeking at the person who murdered her rather than staring up at him. “Zip her up,” she said, standing. “And how the hell are you, Zochi?”
“I’m good, Mimi, thanks. Why are you out here on this?”
“We’re slammed,” she said with a shrug. “I took the beeper tonight. I don’t live far from here; we’re over by Poly Prep.” The “beeper” was a dated reference to actual beepers, which used to summon ADAs to crime scenes when they were on homicide duty back in the day. Now it was mostly cell-phone calls.
“I found this in a side pocket,” Zochi said as they moved aside to let MLI work. “No other ID. No purse, nothing.” In an evidence bag was the leather object, soft looking and ragged.
“Looks like a day planner. Or a wallet?”
“Day planner, I think. I don’t know why she’d need one, but homeless people carry all kinds of things.”
“Have you looked inside it?”
“Not yet. It looks like it’s ready to come apart—rained on or in the water at some point. I’d like to open it and set things out, but not here.”
“PSA can get you into the management office of that building,” Sedrick said, walking over and sticking his thumb in that direction. “They’ll wake someone up.”