FiFty Fifty

Chapter Twenty Six

EDDIE
'I don't know how long it's been since that night,' I said. 'When I think of it, I can't quite piece it all together. The memory is not all there. Just fragments. Maybe that's a good thing. A shrink would tell me that's a symptom of trauma.'
I ran my fingers along the lettering on the tombstone.
MARY ELIZABETH HARPER
I couldn't bring myself to read the rest. Even though Harper, and her partner
in the PI firm, Joe Washington, had been out of the FBI for almost two years, the Bureau gave her a full honors funeral. Joe wouldn't talk to me. Her former colleagues were more accommodating. They let me stand with the rest of the mourners at the graveside, probably because I'd come with Harry. When the service was over, one agent approached me. Paige Delaney. Together with Harper, we'd worked a case not so long ago. Paige and Harper saved my life. She was an analyst at the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit. And one of the smartest people I knew. She'd been in New York for months, tracking the Coney Island killer.
'Joe will come around,' she said. 'He's hurting because he wasn't there to save her.'
I nodded my thanks, but I knew things would never heal. Joe was blaming himself, and me, for not being there when she needed us. I didn't blame him. I should have been the one there. I should have told her sooner how much she meant to me. Maybe if I had just gone to the house earlier she would still be alive. The night of the killing, I'd stood in front of the mirror, trying to psych myself up to go over there and tell her. If I'd been a braver man none of this would've happened.
Paige put a hand on my shoulder, said, 'I asked NYPD if I could take a look at the file. I'm working a profile of Harper's killer. If I hear anything ... I mean ... if they catch somebody, you'll be the first to know.'
'Thanks, I appreciate it.'
With that, she turned and left, joining her fellow agents. Paige was in her fifties, single and married to the job. Her silver hair blew around her black suit jacket, and I felt another thump in my chest. Harper would never get to that stage of life. My marriage had ended partly because I pushed my family away for their
 
own safety. My line of work brings me into contact with bad people, but that's not it. Somehow, my life has brought nothing but pain and loss to those around me. To those who I loved most dearly.
Not only had Harper lost her life, I felt like a part of mine had been taken. A chance to be happy with someone that I loved.
Harper's death turned something over in me. Something dark that had always been there. I had suppressed it, fought it down with friends, with Amy, with Harper. Now I could control it no longer.
I peered over the headstone. Sun was almost up on the first day of the Avellino trial.
My lips touched the marble, and I got to my feet.
'I'll find whoever did this,' I said. 'I'm so sorry.'
The base of the headstone was still covered in flowers. Tributes from friends.
Cards, washed into pulp with snow and rain. One card looked fresher than the others. It was sitting behind plastic that wrapped a dozen roses together. It was from Sofia.
It read – 'I'm sorry.'
Tears masked my way back to the car. I drove into Manhattan with my knuckles white stars on the steering wheel, my teeth clenched.
I parked outside my office and went upstairs. Harry and Clarence were already inside. Harry sat behind my desk. Clarence lay in his bed; he spent enough time here that I at least wanted him to feel comfortable. Clarence and Harry came as a pair now. Harry was looking over the defense exhibits, which we'd shared with the prosecution and Kate Brooks only last week.
'Don't you think it's been long enough?' said Harry. 'You can't keep doing this.'
'Can't keep doing what?'
'Going to her grave every day. The funeral was almost three months ago now. It's time to start thinking about letting go. A wound won't heal if you keep picking the scab.'
'I don't want to heal. I want to get Sofia acquitted and then find out who did this to Harper.'
My office phone rang. I picked up.
'Eddie Fly, I'm downstairs. Come on outside. We need to talk.'
The voice was New York Italian. Jimmy the Hat Fellini. No one else called
me Eddie Fly these days. It was a name that once echoed off the walls of bars, bookies and pool halls. I'd grown up with Jimmy, learned how to box in the same gym. Once you make a friend of Jimmy the Hat you need to have a surgical procedure to get him removed. He was always there when you needed