“I can’t imagine how—” he began and then stopped. He could hear something in his head, a bang or a boom. He closed his eyes.
The door to the courtroom.
Fuck you, Vera! This shit ain’t over!
The wretched pregnant woman who had come out after him, trying to scoop up whatever papers he had thrown.
Joe and Ben Yang, both on their feet trying to help her.
Behind them, Bolds, seated on the heavy wooden bench like an orphan waiting to meet with potential adoptive parents.
The files, sitting right next to him.
“What?” Aideen asked. “What are you seeing?”
“There was a moment. Only a moment, but . . .” He explained it to her.
“Security video,” she said. “We might get lucky if that area is surveilled, and I’ll bet it is.” She scribbled a note. “What was the appearance date? I’ll check it out.”
“Um, the last Thursday in July. The twenty-seventh, I think.”
“Okay. One other thing: I need to go through the details, but I got some information on Hathorne from an investigator who worked for him for a while.”
Joe’s eyes widened. “Wow. How did that happen?”
“He was a cop; he knew Ben. I reached out to him and didn’t hear back, but then he found me in Midtown. There are account records in the materials he gave me. Stuff about how Hathorne accesses money, how he moves it around, and how he gets things like computers and electronic devices.”
“Are family members helping him?” Joe asked. “I didn’t think any of them were inclined.”
“Not that I know of, but he doesn’t need them as long as he has money to spend. This investigator—Sean Hogan is his name—was part of a team with some lawyers at the top, directing things. Hogan seems like a straight arrow. I don’t think anything illegal was done. But there’s evidence they dug deep into your past.”
“We know about that, though, right? All the stuff he knew about my professional life. The cases I worked. The drinking, even.”
“Yes, but they found more than that. They had information on Lois. They found a lot of the same stuff I did, even more of her criminal history. There was a photo of Robbie and details about his job history. Notes about Holly Rossi too—times you two were together at her place and on your boat last summer. You were followed, Joe.”
He sighed. This felt utterly intrusive and terrible but unsurprising. He felt like a fool. “Yeah, I guess I should have known. Remember last winter, before Ben passed away? You tried to warn me. Craig did too.”
She seemed not to register his last comment and instead stared intently at yet another notepad she was filling up. “We also need to find out if there was a connection between Bolds and Hathorne in prison. I’ll start with DOC records and see if they were ever confined together.”
“Craig can help with that,” Joe said. “He’s got connections at DOC. Remember, though, Hathorne is very good at covering his tracks. Be ready to find nothing.”
“He may be clever,” she said, raising an index finger, “but he’s only as clever as his weakest link. I’m going to find it.” She paused, her lips pursed, and scribbled a few more lines on the page. “Evan Bolds has a PO, too, right? I’ll talk to him as well.”
“Bolds? Yeah, absolutely. Craig will get you his contact info. But . . .”
She looked up at him. “But what?”
“Where does this all lead?” He raised his hands in frustration. “Regardless of who found whom or who communicated with whom. Let’s say that Bolds somehow got ahold of a piece of memorabilia from my childhood and was able to pass it to me. What does it mean?”
Aideen spoke slowly, her eyes on his. They were bright again, that brilliant blue. “You said that the last time you saw that card, it was going into your mother’s back pocket.” She flipped back a few pages. “If Bolds, or someone he knows, got that card from your mother before she died? I’d say it means a lot.”
“How would he know the significance of it, though?”
“Aha,” she said, scratching out more words. It was remarkable how quickly she could write and how many pages she could fill at one sitting. She switched back and forth between yellow pads. “That’s where the connection between Hathorne and your brother, Robbie, comes into play. And I know there is one. Robbie knew what that card meant to you, didn’t he?”
“I would guess so, yes. We fought about it, just before the lights went out.”