Chapter 40

They talked shop in the car. Whatever was eating at Bobby wasn't going to see the light of day anytime soon. "I'll fax that picture to Interpol, the one from Germany. Maybe someone can get some closure."

Bobby nodded. "That's good," he said, rubbing his hand over his face, scrubbing it hard against his whiskers.

Alex studied him, glancing back and forth from the road to her passenger. "Bobby, I think you should go… be with your Mom."

He turned his head, and his eyes snapped to hers. "Eames, I'm all right," he told her.

She frowned. "I'm just thinking… if the time is close, I don't want you to have any regrets."

"She's all right. I mean, she's not like a couple of days ago, but…" he shook his head. "He's gonna be executed in ten days. I've got time."

She shifted her focus back to the road and sighed.

Bobby scooped his binder up from the floorboard and unzipped it, balancing it on his knees. He fumbled through the photographs, pausing once again to stare at the woman in the houndstooth skirt. Then he rummaged through the stack again and came up with a much smaller one, a snapshot of Brady in his military uniform.

"What's that?" Alex asked, unable to get a close look because she was at the wheel.

"Oh, uh… Brady. When he was younger." He'd been carrying it around since the case began, part of his background research. He hadn't given it much of a look until now. "I wonder what they saw in him," Bobby muttered.

"Lonely women… he was a smooth talker, and a handyman. Women didn't like to get their hands dirty back then," Alex offered. "And a man in a uniform, well that's hard to resist," she said, thinking back to the last time she'd seen Bobby in his dress blues.

He tucked the picture into the hidden pocket of his suit and tilted his head toward her. "Look, I'll… I'll go see her tonight… then I'll make up my mind."

Alex stole another glance at him. Bless him, Bobby did always manage to listen. "Okay," she said.

She was surprised when she felt his hand brush against her thigh. Alex lowered her right hand and set it in his. Clutching her hand, he tilted his head back against the rest and closed his eyes. He never slept, but he seemed to let the rest go for a while.

She was in pain, but when Bobby walked in, her grimace disappeared and her face brightened. "What a surprise! I thought you were in Pennsylvania today!"

Bobby grinned, that special grin a boy can only give his mother. "I was. But now I'm here. I… I was thinking about you, Ma. I wanted to see you."

She reached out feeble arms to him, and he bent down to give her a kiss. She filled him in on her day, a list of unpleasantries. Bobby listened, nodding her way, and then saw the old photo album lying on her coffee table. He walked over, picked it up, and started going through it from the beginning.

"Ma," he said. "Look at this!" His face was bright with joy, and he walked around to sit beside her, placing the book in her lap. She reached out her hand, fumbling for her glasses on the bedside table. Bobby saw what she needed, stood, and retrieved them for her. He helped her slide them over the tousled wig on her head, carefully adjusting the chain around her neck. Then he pointed to the photograph and smiled again.

She chuckled. "That mangy dog," she said.

"I remember we found it over at the Sullivan's paint shop. Lewis told me it was," Bobby's smile widened and he chuckled as he spoke, "it was too big to go in his house, so I thought I should bring it home. I thought we had more room!"

"It was full of fleas!" She cried. "And do you know the first thing it did when you brought it in was knock over a lamp! That thing was a monster!" She was smiling.

"Didn't you tell me it was a showdog or something? That we had to send it back to its owners before it missed a competition?"

She laughed heartily, and he joined her. "No," she said. "No."

"No?"

"No."

"I'll never forget that… I thought… I used-I used to want… It doesn't make any sense to…" She turned the page in the book. "I like this one," Bobby said. He pointed back to the picture of her in the houndstooth suit.

"Yeah, yeah… that's a good one," his mother said.

"I'd like to have that," Bobby told her. "I would," he said, more quietly.

She pulled it out of the book and handed it over to him, her face full of disappointment. "There. You happy now?" she asked him.

"Yes, thank you," Bobby said, smiling. He'd found the segway he needed. Bobby took a breath and leaned in closer to her. "I ran into… a guy from the old neighborhood. A guy named Mark." He looked into her eyes now, trying to read her expressions.

"What, I'm supposed to remember?" She asked him. Mark was a very common name, especially in a Catholic neighborhood.

"Well, he…" Bobby pulled the snapshot of Brady out of his pocket quickly. She frowned. "He gave me this." Bobby put the picture in front of her. "I don't know," Bobby mumbled.

Frances grew somber, but she kept her face a mask. She couldn't let Bobby find out who Mark was. She sat very still and thought about how she would respond to this. She couldn't lie completely, Bobby would see right through that. She would give him just enough truth to satisfy his curiosity and then he would have to let it be.

"Well, maybe it's the wrong time to show you," Bobby said.

"No, no. I got him now," she said. "He was a lifeguard at-at-at Brighton Beach, uh… at your grandfather's club, and uh… he, uh…he-he used to take a lot of photographs of… girls in bathing suits."

"And you're sure that you recognize him?"

"Oh yeah, of course," she replied. "I…I… I went out with him a couple of times," she chuckled nervously, and added, "before your father."

Bobby nodded, too. "And after that?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Oh, he, uhm… he went into the Army. And I think maybe he was holding a torch for me. But, uh… the moment your father came along, uh, I never saw him again. Uh… I, uh… I was done with all the other men." She smiled a stiff smile and turned the page before finally looking his way. You happy now? Her expression seemed to say.

Bobby tried to smile at her. He wanted to believe her, but he'd been a detective a very long time. He knew what he'd seen, what he'd heard. Three truths and a lie, and you could fool anyone, that was what they said, wasn't it?

He drove back to the city and ended up staring at his bedroom ceiling once again. It wasn't just that his mother had had an affair. It wasn't just that she had crossed paths with Mark Ford Brady. It wasn't even that she might have enjoyed her time with Brady…

It was the timeline. The more Bobby thought of it, the more he realized that Brady, the rapist, the killer… might be his father.