Julia looks over at Logan and Will and wishes desperately she could take all their hurt over the loss of their father and suffer it for them instead. Will’s questions about where his daddy was had abated in the last few days. Julia recalls the last time Will saw David, his single hospital visit just a few days prior, when Will told her he wanted to leave because his father didn’t l ook the same anymore and the strange beeping machines hooked up to David frightened him. Julia prays if Will carries one memory of his father in his life, it will not be that one. Logan, six years older than Will, is more aware of the permanence of the circumstances. Logan is taking David’s death much harder and has quickly learned that the world is not the safe place he thought it once was but is instead randomly merciless and unforgiving.
Julia walks quietly to her bathroom so as not to wake the boys. She looks at her reflection in the mirror and knows she looks beyond haggard but doesn’t care.
A light tapping sounds on the door. Julia splashes cold water on her face before she opens it and finds Logan, whose thin shoulders appear to now carry an almost impossibly heavy weight on them.
“I didn’t know where you were and I got scared,” Logan says. A tear slips down his cheek, and Julia wipes it away.
“I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.” Julia kneels down and hugs Logan as hard as she can.
“I feel like it’s my fault Daddy died,” Logan says, his sweet, still-high-pitched voice now a ragged whisper. “Maybe his heart broke because I only went to see him a couple of times in the hospital. If I had visited him more, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”
“Of course it’s not your fault. You and Will were the light of your dad’s life. You brought him so much joy.” Julia pauses and waits for Logan to speak, as she takes the cue from the grief counselor at the hospital who gave her some insight on how to help her children cope with the loss of their father.
“Daddy told me when we went to the lake house this summer, he and I would play basketball like we always did.”
“He would have loved that.”
“I can’t do that with him anymore.”
“I was thinking we could create a memory book about Daddy with pictures and stories, and we could fill it up with all the things he loved to do with you and Will,” Julia says as she struggles for the right thing to say.
“He and I used to get up early on Sunday mornings and make eggs and pancakes for everyone. That was my favorite,” Logan says.
“That’s a great memory.”
“When do I have to go back to school?”
“When you’re ready. Don’t worry about that right now.”
Julia pulls Logan in her lap and the two sit on the bathroom floor, mother and child comforting each other. Logan curls up against Julia’s chest. His body feels almost limp against Julia. She strokes Logan’s hair and makes promises that sound phony even to herself: that everything will be okay and they will get through it. Logan’s breathing becomes slow and steady, and Julia realizes he is asleep. She picks him up, struggling under her once small boy’s quickly growing frame, and carries him back to bed.
Julia approaches the kitchen and can already smell coffee brewing. She hesitates for a moment, since it’s only six-thirty and she told Helen to take the morning off. Julia grabs a sturdy glass vase from the hallway table and moves stealthily forward.
Helen stands in front of the kitchen island making breakfast. She looks curiously at Julia with the vase in her hand and reaches for a mug in the cabinet.
“You didn’t sleep again,” Helen comments, and pours Julia an extra large cup of coffee. “There are pills your doctor can give you to help you sleep. If you’re too exhausted, you’ll be useless to your boys.”
Julia takes a long sip of the steaming coffee, savoring its warmth and smell, and sits on one of the tall barstools along the kitchen island.
“I don’t like pills. I need to be alert at all times. If something happens in the night, then I’ll be useless to Logan and Will,” Julia says. “You weren’t supposed to come over this morning. You’ve been with us around the clock for over a week now, and you need to take care of yourself, too. I know your husband misses you being at home with him.”
“Alek is retired and is always at home now. Maybe I need a little break from him once in a while.”
“You’ve been so wonderful to me and my children. There aren’t enough words to thank you for all you’ve done for us.”
Helen moves to Julia’s side and puts her hand on the younger woman’s shoulder. “When I was a girl, my parents sent me and my older brother out of Poland to stay with relatives in London, because they were afraid of the Nazi occupation. My brother and I made it there safely, but I never saw my parents again. I can still see their faces as I looked out the window of the train the day I left Poland. My mother pretended to be happy, but deep down she feared that moment would be her last memory of my brother and me. I was eight, the same age as Logan, when she said good-bye to us. It’s been over sixty years since that day, but every morning when I wake up, I still see her on the train track, waving at me, bidding me our final farewell. For a child, you see, the loss of a parent never goes away, no matter how many years slip by.”
Helen pulls Julia’s head to her chest, and Julia lets out a deep sob, feeling like a child being comforted by her mother, an experience Julia never had.
“You’re like family to me, and you’ve suffered a terrible tragedy. I’ll stay by your side and your children’s sides until I know you’re ready for me to go.”
Helen keeps holding Julia until Julia pulls away.
“You go on now,” Helen tells her. “You must have much preparation to still do for David’s service today. I will get the boys ready, so take care of whatever else you need.”
Julia heads to David’s office to look for any overlooked family photographs to take to the service. She hesitates at the door, unable to go inside at first. This was the room David spent most of his time in as he worked tirelessly and late into the evenings in preparation for his cases the next day. Julia can picture David still sitting in his office chair, dressed in his Harvard Law T-shirt, going through his files and jotting down strategy on one of his constant supplies of yellow legal pads.
She finally enters and sits down on David’s chair, wishing desperately the police had been able to find her husband’s case file on Rossi that was either lost or destroyed in the attack. Julia absentmindedly runs her hand across an unused legal pad on the desk, and an image of two letters, clear and exact from the day of the bombing, surfaces into Julia’s memory.
I.R.
Those initials with a question mark after them were written in David’s handwriting on a yellow legal pad that sat on the prosecution’s table. Julia spotted the initials on the paper as she searched Judge Palmer’s courtroom for David and Logan right after the bomb went off.
Julia turns the letters over in her mind, swiveling David’s chair back and forth as she hunts for a meaning. Julia’s leg grazes something that feels unnatural underneath the desk, and her fingers search for the object until she reaches a piece of paper. She gets down on her knees and peers under the desk. Taped carefully to its underside is a plain white envelope. Julia tears it free and from the envelope, pulls out a simple business card with the inscription INFINITY HOLDINGS and a Detroit address written across it. Julia feels a trickle of electricity go through her as she starts to connect the pieces and remembers seeing the same business card from the vault and safety deposit company when she was in Isabella Rossi’s cottage.
I.R. Isabella Rossi.
Julia grabs her house phone and calls Navarro. When the call goes to voice mail, Julia tries his partner, Russell, instead.
“Hey, Julia. A bunch of us will be at David’s service later today. Is there anything you need?” Russell asks.
“No. Listen, I need to meet with you and Navarro this morning. It’s urgent.”
“Sure, of course, if you have time, come on down to t
he station. Ray should be back in about half an hour. He went to pick up a flash drive at the University of Detroit Mercy. That Bartello guy who was working for Rossi gave the drive to a buddy of his before he died, and the friend gave it to the local cops, who forwarded it to Ray. The recording on it is pretty grainy, but Ray knows a woman over at the college in the video production department who’s helped us out before. Ray just called and said she got it cleaned up a bit, so we’re going to take a look to see if we can get anything on it. Probably a long shot, though.”
“Okay. I’ll be there. This is important. Tell Navarro I found a business card hidden under David’s desk from a company called Infinity Holdings. David kept saying the word Infinity along with a series of numbers when he came out of the coma. He was trying to tell me something. This Infinity Holdings is connected to the trial somehow and to Rossi. Right before David died, he told me to find the money before she did. It’s all connected somehow.”
“Infinity Holdings. That’s one of those high-end vault places,” Russell says.
“I bet Nick Rossi isn’t the only one wrapped up in this. I think Isabella Rossi is too.”
* * *
Julia rushes to the police station, carefully eyeing the clock. It’s nine AM, and David’s service is at noon.
The receptionist buzzes Julia through the security glass door, and Julia politely thanks the murmuring chorus of “I’m sorry for your loss” as she passes by police officers who know her well from her beat and David from his work as a prosecutor and public defender.
Julia takes the familiar route to Russell and Navarro’s office, and the two men are bent over Navarro’s computer screen. Russell leaps to his feet and gives Julia a big, protective bear hug.
“How are you doing, sweetheart?” Russell asks.
“We’re all just working through it,” Julia answers, and then cuts to the chase. “Like I told Navarro, David knew something about Rossi that got him killed. I’m sure of it now. I found this card hidden under his desk at home. Isabella Rossi had the same card in her cottage in California. David kept saying the word Infinity back at the hospital, and he had the initials I.R. written on a yellow legal pad the day of the bombing. I.R., Isabella Rossi.”
“I know you want Rossi to pay, but do me a favor and go home. The service is in a few hours, and I promise you, we’ll handle it,” Navarro says. “You need to take care of yourself and your kids right now. I promise I’ll look into this as soon as we view the video.”
“I have some time,” Julia answers. “You need to look at Isabella Rossi hard.”
Julia pushes the Infinity Holdings business card into Navarro’s hand, and he studies it for a second. “Russell and I will go over there to see if Rossi has an account with them. Isabella said she planned on being here in Detroit for an extended period of time, so we’ll find her.”
“Russell, can you give me and Navarro a minute?” Julia asks.
Russell looks to Navarro and then shrugs his okay as he leaves the office and closes the door behind him.
“Do me a favor and stop telling me to go home,” Julia argues. “I need to find out what happened.”
“I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but I don’t want you weighted down with anything more. You’ve been through enough. Just go home and I’ll call you if we find anything.”
“I don’t want to go home. Don’t block me out of this, and stop trying to take care of me all the time.”
Navarro sighs and lets Julia’s words sink in. “Okay. If that’s what you want, then fine. I’ll go get Russell and we’ll all look at the video together.”
Russell returns, looking between his two friends for any clues of their conversation, and then sits down at his desk.
“I won’t take this personally,” Russell says.
“It wasn’t about you,” Julia answers.
“Pop the drive back in your computer,” Navarro tells Russell.
“We just saw a couple seconds of it before you got here, Julia,” Russell says. “Hopefully it is in better shape since Navarro had his friend over at the college give it a once-over. All you could see before was the outline of some guy banging the shit out of a blond chick.”
Navarro shoots his partner a look as Russell puts on a pair of drugstore reading glasses and puts the drive back in his computer.
The recording comes on, and the date and time appear on the bottom of the screen.
“March 1. That’s just over a month ago and almost two months after we did the sting at the hotel and arrested Rossi,” Navarro says. “Keep going.”
The video continues to play. The first few minutes capture only an empty hotel room.
“This recording is in worse shape than the Anthony Ruiz one I found back in Isabella’s cottage,” Julia says.
“Hold it right there,” Navarro says. “Can you zoom in to the desk?”
“I don’t know how,” Russell answers.
“Let me try,” Julia says as she grabs the computer mouse.
“You see that stationery? What’s the name on top?” Navarro asks.
“Detroit MGM Grand,” Julia answers.
“Okay, we got the location. The MGM Grand was Rossi’s home base for his gambling and drug ring,” Russell says.
“Go ahead and keep playing the video,” Navarro says. “This is the part my friend at the college says was fuzzy, but she tried her best to clean it up.”
As predicted, the quality of the recording diminishes, and the video becomes extremely dark and grainy.
“Okay, they’re coming in now,” Navarro says.
In the right-hand corner of the picture, the hotel room door opens and two people walk inside.
“It’s a tall guy in a suit and a blond woman with a kicking figure, kind of like that Tandy Sanchez reporter from the Detroit News, but that’s all I can get from this,” Russell says. “The images look like mud.”
The blond woman hands the man a briefcase, which he takes over to a table and opens.
“Again. Zoom in there, Julia,” Navarro instructs.
“Those aren’t bricks,” Russell says. “Those are bundles of cash.”
The man takes the money out of the briefcase and looks like he’s counting it.
“It’s unlikely that’s a drug deal or gambling payoff unless Rossi is an idiot and uses the exact same location to sell his stuff where he was just busted,” Navarro says.
“Probably a payoff of some kind,” Russell says.
“If we could just get a full headshot, that would help,” Julia answers.
The blonde hurries across the room to the man in the suit.
“I think the next part of this video won’t be suitable for children,” Russell says.
“Shut up, will you?” Navarro tells Russell.
The blonde pulls her dress over her head, and the man’s hands are all over her body. The blonde unbuttons his shirt and works his belt and zipper until his pants fall away at his feet.
“Looks like the blonde is going south there,” Russell says as the woman’s face moves down toward the man’s crotch.
“Russell, I swear . . .” Navarro starts.
“They’re shot from the side. Just turn around so I can see your face,” Julia implores the people on the screen.
The man strips off the blonde’s underwear in a quick snap and pushes her down on the bed.
“The guy’s fair haired,” Navarro comments. “Tall, and wiry.”
“That fits the description of about two thousand guys in the metro Detroit area,” Russell comments. “Oh, wait. I see a hand. She’s got a firm grip on his ass, and the waistband of his underwear is going down. And there’s takeoff. Wait . . . and now liftoff. My friends, the Eagle has landed inside the blonde, and he’s giving her the ride of her life.”
“Russell, easy on the play-by-play, all right?” Julia asks.
“Sorry about that,” Russell concedes.
“There’s something on the guy’s ass, on his right butt cheek. What is that?”
Navarro asks. “Can you zoom in, Julia?”
“It looks like a shit stain to me,” Russell answers.
“One more comment and I swear I’m kicking you out of this room,” Navarro says.
“I’m zooming,” Julia says.
Julia freezes the frame and does a close-up.
The three do a quick assessment, and Julia pushes herself abruptly away from the computer screen.
“If you’re uncomfortable looking at this, it’s okay,” Navarro says.
“What you see on the screen, that’s a birthmark,” Julia says quietly.
“Yeah, it’s unique. Kind of looks like a crescent moon with a shooting star underneath it,” Russell says.
“I know who the man in the video is,” Julia says. “It’s David.”
“Is that Brooke Stevenson?” Russell asks.
Navarro inspects the still frame frozen on the screen. “Could be with a wig.”
* * *
Julia looks back at the brick colonial in Detroit’s Boston-Edison District and wonders how many times David frequented the place to visit its owner. She curses herself for not pushing harder with Navarro to let her sit in on the interview with Brooke Stevenson, whom she saw opening the front door of her home twenty minutes earlier.
Julia checks the clock on Navarro’s car dashboard again and is about to get out and bang on the door when Navarro and Russell make their way down a tidy flagstone path to the street.
“She looks like she’s got the same figure as the broad in the video, but Brooke Stevenson swears that’s not her and she didn’t know anything about a payoff,” Russell says as he works his way into the passenger-side front seat. “She seemed genuinely shocked that David might have been involved in something illegal.”
“She’s not the only one, but Brooke’s lying about the video,” Julia answers. “I saw the pictures on David’s phone.”
“Claims that wasn’t her either. Brooke said David dumped her when the two of you got back together,” Navarro says, and starts the car. “Did you see her face in the photos on David’s phone?”
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