“Tell me what you remember.”
“I just told you, I don’t remember where I was.”
“That’s not what I asked you,” she said patiently. “Just tell me what comes to mind.”
“There was no expression,” he said after a few seconds. His eyes dimmed. “She wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t hopeful. She wasn’t . . . expectant. She was just watching me. Like clocking me.”
“Okay.”
“It was dusk, or just after dark. Everything was a mess, like trash every . . .” He trailed off and snapped his eyes to Aideen’s. “Yes, trash! I remember now. It was right after the Fourth of July, because the whole boardwalk was a mess.”
“Ah, so it was Coney Island. Makes sense. It looks like that’s where she took up residence.”
“Yeah, it was on the boardwalk,” Joe said. “I walked there from the boat, right next to Calvert Vaux Park. It’s a good half-hour walk. I probably walked down to Surf Avenue and hung a left, east to where the beach bars are. I can see it now. Things were slow at work because of the holiday. I’d been half in the bag all week, to tell you the truth.” He paused, and Aideen fanned herself with a manila envelope. There was AC running, but the air in the room was hot and thick. Murmurings of attorney-client conversations droned nearby.
“Tell me more,” she said. “Close your eyes if you have to. Tell me what you saw.”
“It was just a moment.” He shook his head. “She was looking at me, though, from the beach side, near one of the bathhouses—you know, those brick buildings you walk through to get onto the beach. I was still walking east, toward the aquarium. There were plenty of people out: families, kids, the usual weirdos. Then there she was, following me with her eyes. Like a cat.”
“Was she standing? Sitting?”
“She was standing.” His eyes went dim again, like he was hypnotized. “Just by herself. She had a long dress on, kind of like in the newspaper photo you found.” His brow knitted. “There’s something else I noticed. She was smoking a cigarette.”
“Okay.”
“I can see it now, in her right hand, between the first two fingers. And she was . . . tapping on the butt with her thumb.” He made the motion himself, then swallowed hard and looked at Aideen with eyes raw. “Lois smoked like that. All the time. That tapping. It was like a nervous tic. I didn’t recognize her, though. I mean, even seeing that, it didn’t register.”
“It did though,” she said. “You remember it, so it registered somewhere. It just had to be drawn to the surface, like something in a well. I have moments where I remember things about Ben that way. Little things, like how he twirled his cell phone or flicked beer bottle caps into the trash. They sneak up on you.”
“But . . . forty years?”
“I don’t think it matters,” she said with a shrug. “I know your memories are distant, but . . . I think it works the same.”
“Maybe I should have talked to her, even if I didn’t know who she was, if she was looking at me like that.” He stared at his hands.
“That’s not what most people do,” she said. “Particularly in this town. Look, you have to process this. I don’t think you can second-guess what you should have done. But I think what I got from the homeless woman, Wilomena, makes sense: Lois came back here for a few reasons, maybe, but at least one of them was hitting you up for legal help.”
“I can’t imagine why, though. You said you found no charges against her, right? No judgments?”
“Correct, nothing. That Lutheran church really cleaned her up. She was in the clear in terms of her own legal problems. So what else, then?”
“I don’t know, I just . . .” He trailed off and seemed to sag.
“It’s okay.” She was in a particularly driven mood, but she had to remember to go a little easier on Joe sometimes. This was important to her, but it was life and death to him. She softened her tone. “Anyway, I’m sorry you didn’t get to talk to her. I really am.”
“I wish she had said something. Anything. I don’t even know how I would have reacted, but . . .”
“She wasn’t ready to approach you,” Aideen said. “She found you, and she was watching you. Look, it was she who made the choices that put so much distance between you two in the first place. I don’t mean to sound harsh, but if Lois thought it would be difficult to approach you again, out of the blue, then she was right. Maybe she was trying to work up to it.”