“Sure. So Lois knew that Joe was her son, and that he lived nearby?”
“Something like that, I didn’t grab it all. Sad-ass story’s what it sounded like. Old lady wandering around out here, living in shelters and looking for her lawyer son? What’s that about?”
“They were estranged for many years,” Aideen said.
“Sad-ass story.”
“It is. It’s very interesting to me that Lois was looking for Joe.”
“Yeah, maybe Joe didn’t want to be found.”
“Maybe. Can I show you one other photo? This one is of Lois, but it’s from a couple of years ago.” She held up the printout of the Sacramento Bee article, the one with a photo of a group of women posing with Pastor Nelson in a community garden. Wilomena hesitated, then looked over.
“Yeah, that’s her. The old lady on the right side.”
“Did she look much different when you met her this summer?”
“Not really. A few pounds lighter, maybe.”
“That photo was taken in California, before she came back here.”
“California. She should have stayed there.”
“That’s the thing. Based on what you’re telling me, I’m wondering if she came back here to maybe look for family, like Joe. They were apart for many, many years, but . . . I get the sense she might have wanted to reconnect with him.”
Wilomena released a heaving breath, like she was tolerating a particularly annoying child. “If you or anyone else had ever talked to her before she got strangled out here, you wouldn’t have to get the sense, yo.”
“It’s what she told you, then? I’m sorry to sound thickheaded, Wilomena, but these details could be everything.”
“Wasn’t much. She hadn’t seen him in a long time, just like you said. I think she took up here because she found out he lived in one of these neighborhoods, off the beach.”
“He does,” Aideen said. “But from what I understand from reading the police reports, Lois was trying to get to Staten Island. That’s where she’s from, orig—”
“She needed a lawyer, first,” Wilomena said, interrupting.
Aideen’s fingertips were tingling. “She needed a lawyer?”
“That’s what she told me. This guy, Joe? As far as I know, he’s the person she wanted to connect with. I don’t know what she planned on after that. Pick up the pieces somewhere else. Staten Island, maybe, whatever was over there.”
“Right,” Aideen said, as if confirming it aloud helped her put it together. “So Lois knew her son Joe was an attorney, and she needed his help. It would have been hard for her to approach him. I have an idea of how long she was away from her sons. And how she left them.”
“She never said nothing to me about that,” Wilomena said, as if warding off another person’s problem. “Chitchat, that’s all we had. I don’t know if she ever found him, or if he found her. I hope he didn’t do that shit to her, though.”
“Me too.” Aideen was sweating with the sun on her back, but a welcome breeze swept in from the ocean and lifted her hair. She was hesitant to ask the next thing. “So if police wanted to know about this, would you talk to them?”
Wilomena frowned. “The one lady cop. Spanish lady. I guess I’d talk to her. You know who she is.”
“I do.”
Wilomena looked satisfied for a moment, then scrunched up her face. “How the hell’d you find me, anyway? I know what goes in those reports. ‘No fixed address.’ That’s what they write. I’ve seen that shit. You found me anyway.”
“Finding people, I learned from my husband,” Aideen said. “It’s harder to do it without a badge, though.” There was a gleam in her eye—part pride, part fresh ache—and for a flash she thought she saw it reflected in the other woman’s. “Take care out here, Wilomena. Thank you again.”
CHAPTER 55
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
Anna M. Kross Center, Rikers Island
East River in the Bronx
9:45 a.m.
“You ever walk through a crowd,” Joe mused, “like anywhere in this town, and even though there are hundreds of people, you see how one person is looking at you?” Seated across from Aideen in an attorney interview room, he seemed subdued and unusually sad.
“I’m not that perceptive,” she said. “I can imagine that, though, sure.”
“I can’t remember where I was.” He scratched the back of his neck where the jumpsuit collar was itching him. “I was probably half-drunk. I know I saw her, though. I’m positive.”