“Hello?” She answered on the third ring.
“I looked up the number for Gloriana Q so I guess you must be Minta Kraft.”
“And to whom am I speaking?”
“My name is Joe Oliver. I’m a private detective.”
“I haven’t asked for the services of a detective, Mr. Oliver.”
“Someone else has hired me.”
“Who is that?”
“I can’t say, but what he asked me to do is to look into the case of Alfred Xavier Quiller.”
“What has that got to do with me?”
“I went to see Mr. Quiller on Rikers Island and he suggested that if I had any questions for his wife that I might pose them to you.”
Ms. Kraft sat on that for a moment, then asked, “Did Mr. Quiller have anything you were to say to me?”
“That he wanted me to tell his wife to be strong.”
After a beat she asked, “Anything else?”
“That I was the eclipse.”
Another hesitation and then: “I’m going to put you on hold for a moment.”
I loved my daughter. Just when I thought I was about to lose my mind she called me back to bedrock. Now I was doing my job, working for a living and momentarily safe from harm.
Seven minutes later the fog had cleared and Minta Kraft’s voice came back on the line.
“I’ll have to reach out to Ms. Prim before I can answer any questions, Mr. Oliver,” she said in a friendly enough tone.
“Ms. Prim?”
“Mathilda Prim — Mr. Quiller’s wife.”
“Does she know Lillian Lawler?”
“I don’t think so. Why?”
“I don’t know. The name, I guess. You want my number?”
“Is it the one you’re calling me from?”
“No,” I said and proceeded to give her my current cell number.
7
The Metropolitan Correctional Center is located on Park Row behind the Thurgood Marshall U.S. Courthouse on Foley Square. It’s a big building that doesn’t look much like a jail from the outside, but once they let you in, it’s a cold sweat on a hot day.
“Mr. Oliver?” a man in an awkwardly designed dark tan and light blue suit asked.
I was in the fifth-floor waiting room, sitting among lawyers, sad and disgruntled family members, and a few nondescript male individuals who were, no doubt, thugs.
“Yes,” I said, standing and holding out a hand.
“Agent Raoul Davies,” he said without returning the gesture.
We stood there a moment being watched by a dozen pairs of eyes in the locked-door antechamber. I let my hand go down and waited.
“Why don’t you come with me?” Davies suggested.
The eyes followed us until we went through a pink and gray door.
Davies guided me down a slender hall to a squat door, also pink and gray, which opened onto a small chamber about three times the size of a janitor’s hopper room. What was surprising about this room was that it was empty — there wasn’t even a chair to sit on.
Turning to me, Davies asked, “How do you know Art Tomey?”
“His daughter went missing a few years ago and he asked me to find her.”
“Did you?”
“If I hadn’t he wouldn’t have called you.”
Art Tomey was a high-profile criminal lawyer who took federal cases, mainly. He had clout and owed me. That’s the bread and butter of a private detective’s life, deep debt that comes out of shadow and pain.
The federal agent was my height with twenty extra pounds of flesh and sinew distributed evenly around the frame.
“You’re a walk-in,” he said.
“I don’t understand. Art called you, right?”
“Yes, of course. What I mean to say is that our facility’s surveillance team didn’t see you in a car anywhere around here.”
“Oh. Yeah. My office is on Montague Street over in Brooklyn. I walked across the bridge to get here.”
“I see. What’s your interest in Mr. Tesserat?”
“He’s married to my ex-wife. Didn’t your surveillance team tell you that?”
“No one likes a smartass,” he advised.
I took it. He was in charge and the MCC reminded me of Rikers.
He watched me. He was a professional watcher.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
“To see Coleman. Monica, his wife, told me that he has no lawyer and that you won’t let her see him.”
“So you try to put pressure on us through Tomey?”
“Is it working?”
Davies did something with his tongue in his cheek, looking like he had a piece of food lodged in there somewhere.
“We’re debriefing Mr. Tesserat,” Davies said, giving up on the blockage. “As soon as that’s done he’ll be allowed visitors.”
“I walked all the way over here, man. At least you could let me shout at him a minute or two.”
The agent’s eyebrows went up about half an inch, making it look as if an idea had occurred.
“Do you know Tava Burkel?” he asked.
“Never heard of him. It’s a him, right?”
“Why are you here, Mr. Oliver?”
“To see Coleman Tesserat.”
“You’re not a lawyer.”
“And you’re not a snake,” I said, feeding nonsense with its kin.
The federal agent snorted and turned.
“Follow me.”
The hallway was reminiscent of an upscale mental hospital where the patients were kept behind pastel gray closed and knobless doors. The air felt cloying, but that was probably my aversion to lockups of any kind. The hall turned twice before we came to a room that had a man in a black suit slouching against the wall next to it.
This sentinel came to attention when Davies rolled up.
“He there?” Agent Raoul asked.
“Not yet,” the man in black said. He was about five eight and had the stance of a wily boxer. It was something about the way he managed both weight and balance.
“Let him in,” the boss told his minion, tossing his head in my direction.
While the sentry worked an imposing-looking key on the door, I fought down the urge to run.
The room was small and bare, tan from ceiling to floor, furnished with two folding chairs and a small table that was bolted down. There was a thick and very dark scuff mark to the right of the chair I sat in. I couldn’t imagine what had made that smudge, but it gave the impression of a violent action.
There was another door opposite the one I came through. It too had no knob.
Sitting there I was thinking of how much I didn’t like the incarceration trend I was going in. Too many locked doors and institutional settings. Too many dismissive guardians.
The door before me came open and Coleman walked through. The uniform he wore was dark blue with big yellow checks in unexpected places. His shoes seemed to be made of paper and he was bound with manacles, hands to feet.
Good-looking Coleman was my height, but unlike me he was light-skinned. Ten years my ex-wife’s junior, he usually had an arrogant sneer when seeing me. Not that day, however.
He shambled over to the chair on the other side of the table.
“Can’t shake hands” were his first words.
He managed to push the chair out and when he finally sat we looked at each other a moment or two.
“I always thought I’d be seeing you in the jailhouse.” His voice was softer than usual but the arrogance the same. “But not like this.”
“Why they got you in here, Coleman?”
“That shit doesn’t concern you.”
“Oh yes, it does. I don’t care about Monica, but she’s Aja’s mother and you have to have a bull’s-eye on your back for this here.”
I was having way too good a time lording it over Tesserat. He was a dog but I was the same breed. He’d been seeing my wife when we were still together, but I’d been seeing half a dozen women around the same time.