The Donnellys’ home was located in Riverside, one of the roughest neighborhoods in Wilmington. Finn and Darlene had purchased the house in the early seventies, in what was then a post-war community of Irish immigrants. After the nearby Eastlake projects closed, its residents—and problems—spilled over into Riverside. Most of their Irish Catholic neighbors packed up and headed to the suburbs. Not the Donnellys. That wasn’t Finn’s style.
By the time I arrived, the DEA had already split. The woman and child who’d been staying at the Donnellys’ house were also long gone, spooked off by the break-in earlier in the week.
“How long will you be staying in town?” I asked Grace. She was busy stuffing clothes back into a dresser. There was no sense folding them. Everything was headed for the Goodwill, she told me.
“I’ll be in Wilmington the next week or so, while we get Dad’s affairs settled. All the bills paid up. Aunt Jessop and I were cleaning the house, getting it in shape so we could list it—and then the DEA came through here and trashed everything. I sent her back to the hotel for now.”
“I’m sorry you have to deal with this. Did they take anything?”
She shook her head. “I know you used to be a lawyer. I couldn’t get ahold of the family’s attorney, so I just thought…I’m sorry to drag you into this. I didn’t know who else to call.”
“You did the right thing.”
“I don’t understand. What would the Drug Enforcement Agency want with my father?”
I’d read over the warrant already. The Donnellys’ address was indeed listed as the target. The property to be seized, however, was simply listed as anything “illegal to be possessed” or “material evidence to be used in a subsequent criminal prosecution.” Boilerplate text. Still, I recognized the judge who’d signed off on it. The document appeared legit.
“Let’s head into the living room,” I said. “We need to talk.”
She offered me something to drink—water, tea, coffee? Barack and Steve were waiting down the street in the Escalade. They could wait a little longer.
“Warm milk, if you have it,” I said.
I took a seat on the couch. She joined me a few minutes later.
“Thanks,” I said, taking the milk. I took a sip—a small one, just to judge how hot it was. Instead, I found myself doing my best not to gag. It was the perfect temperature. Not too cold, not too hot. Something was off, though. “Is this…skim?” I asked.
“Almond milk,” she said. “Is that all right?”
I forced a smile. “Perfect.”
I set the mug on the side table. In as plain terms as I could, I explained to her what the police had found in her father’s pocket. She listened to me, stone-faced, as I told her there was more—a map, with my address on it. That my working theory was that Finn may have had a drug problem and needed my help. I didn’t believe for a second that Finn actually did drugs, but what else did the evidence point to?
I didn’t say anything about the carpet with the possible blood stains. I stuck to the known facts. And I most definitely didn’t say anything about my other theory: foul play. I didn’t want her to lose herself down the same mad road I was on. Not until I knew for sure. Hope was one thing; false hope was another.
“What do the police believe?” she asked.
“You’d have to ask them,” I said.
“They didn’t tell me any of this.”
“Think back to when they talked to you. Did they take a statement?”
She shook her head. “The only cop I’ve spoken to is Detective Caprese.”
“Capriotti?”
“That’s it. Detective Capriotti.”
I sighed. “It may be my fault.”
Her eyes went wide.
“Not what happened to your father, but why they’ve kept you in the dark. The part about my address made it to the Secret Service somehow, and I told them to keep a lid on it. I knew the kind of headlines it would generate. I wanted your family to be able to say goodbye without fighting off reporters left and right. I thought the police would at least ask you about any substance abuse in your father’s past.”
“They may have talked to my aunt,” she conceded.
I rubbed my forehead. Trying to work out the kinks in my brain.
“There wasn’t any, you know. Any substance abuse in his past,” Grace said. “He never even took a—”
“—drink. I know.” I placed a hand on her shoulder. “This has to be a shock.”
“It doesn’t feel real.”
And it never will, I thought. You just learn to live with the feeling.
We stared across the room at the barren walls. When Finn had rented out the house, he’d apparently pulled everything down. All their paintings. There were still a few personal things left, like a metal train on the mantel.
Grace caught me eyeing it.
“Dad was the third railroad worker in our family. The first conductor. It was his life.” She wiped a tear away. “I thought sometimes that he would have been happier with a son, because a boy might have been more into trains. It sounds silly, because I know it’s not true.”
“He was so excited to have a child, especially a daughter. He told me that himself. He called you his little miracle.”
She laughed. “That’s because it took them twenty years of trying.”
“Practice makes perfect.”
The edge of her lips curled up. “When I was thirteen, he asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said, ‘Anything, so long as it doesn’t have to do with effing trains.’ I was a little rebellious.”
“Just a tad.”
“I was thirteen, but I could see the future. Trains were on their way out. They’d been on their way out since the first Model T rolled off the assembly line. I wasn’t going to jump on board a sinking ship.”
Then she excused herself, and I thought about what she’d said. America had been built with trains. That was a long time ago. The steam train was a relic. Passenger light rail was the future. Or at least it should have been. Every year, fewer and fewer people were on board with the dream. High-speed trains worked in Europe and Japan, but America was a different beast. Without government funding, passenger trains were money-losers. What Americans didn’t realize was that without government funding, so were highways and any other form of transportation, public or private.
When she returned from the bathroom, I thanked her for the almond milk that I hadn’t touched. She walked me to the door. “Before I leave, I was wondering, did the cops return a duffel bag to you? It might have been with your father’s stuff at the motel. A waitress down at the Waffle Depot mentioned it to me, and it’s been bugging me ever since. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
Grace shook her head. “Dad had a suitcase at the motel, but that was it. Haven’t seen a duffel bag around here, either. If it was his, it’s missing, just like his watch.”
“His pocket watch?”
She nodded. “The police didn’t find it at the scene of the accident. He never went anywhere without it. We assumed it had been stolen out of his room. It could have been in the duffel bag.” She shrugged. “Maybe the duffel bag was stolen, and the watch was in there?”
“Maybe,” I said. I didn’t want to say any more. “Listen, I should be going. I’ll see if I can figure out the deal with the warrant. In the meantime, stay with your aunt at the hotel, if you can. This house has already been broken into once—”
Through the window slats, I could see a woman walking up the driveway. She had a fine figure, but that’s not the first thing I noticed. What really caught my eye was her waist-length blond hair, pulled back into a ponytail, swinging behind her as she approached the door.