have called her last night.”
“She’s fine, physically. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Then what? What’s wrong?”
“Let’s wait until we have some cocktails in front of us, okay?”
We ended up at a crappy Irish place on Third Avenue.
Kyle ordered a Jameson rocks. I asked for a pint of Guinness, girding my taste buds for disappointment.
We slid into a booth and the bartender put some quarters in the jukebox.
“Clancy Brothers,” I said. “Gag me.”
“You used to love Irish dives.”
“I used to love Irish guys. Thankfully, there’s a cure for that.”
“What?”
“Penicillin.”
I took a sip of the Guinness, then pushed it away. Someone had obviously dissolved a urinal cake in it despite the crappy head.
Kyle winked at me over his Jameson. “Pickled egg?”
“You first.”
He put down the drink.
“Truth or Dare, Kyle.”
He ran a fingertip along the edge of his glass. “Truth.”
“Why are we here?”
“Mrs. Underhill’s waffling on her testimony. Bost needs her to
step up.”
“She testified before the grand jury, right?”
Kyle didn’t answer. I guess he wasn’t allowed to.
“If she changes her story now it’s perjury,” I said. “Can’t Bost threaten her with jail time or something?”
“The woman’s ninety years old, or close to it. Juries don’t want to see someone like her being grilled—elderly, polite, vulnerable. She’s lost her daughter, her great-grandson, her husband—and she’s old enough to get away with saying she’s confused, or forgets things.”
“She’s sharp as a tack.”
“You know that,” he said. “The jury doesn’t.”
I looked at my Guinness.
“Look, Bost mentioned that you’d spent some time with the woman, bonded a little. Maybe you could check in with her. Give her some encouragement. That’s all I’m saying.”
“How could she back down? After what happened to that boy,
everything she knew? Jesus, we cried together….”
“Families are strange.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Tell me about it.”
“Just call her. It can’t hurt.”
“If she wants to shut down there’s nothing I can do.”
“Try anyway.”
“I will. Of course I will.”
He was quiet again for a minute.
“What?” I said.
“Truth or Dare.”
“Truth.”
“What happened that makes this matter so much to you?”
“This boyfriend of Mom’s molested my little sister. When she was eleven. I just found out about it.”
He nodded, sadly.
“It’s not—I mean, compared to the stuff you’re dealing with, Kyle? It was bad, but let’s just say he never achieved penetration.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “It’s about the destruction of trust. The physical details aren’t predictive of how much damage that will do.”
No. They sure as shit aren’t.
I tried calling Mrs. Underhill seven times that night. She didn’t have a machine and she never picked up.
Bost called the pathologist to the stand the next morning. He looked different in a coat and tie. I hadn’t recognized him at first.
“In September of last year you examined the skeletal remains which had been discovered in Prospect Cemetery, did you not?” she asked.
“I did,” he said.
“Can you describe your preliminary findings relating to the victim’s identity?”
“The remains were those of a child, roughly three years old and of African ancestry.”
“And could you determine the child’s sex?” asked Bost.
“It’s difficult to ascertain the gender of skeletal remains in prepubescent victims. Secondary sexual characteristics aren’t apparent before an individual reaches the teenage years.”
“And yet you’re confident that these are the remains of Teddy
Underhill?”
“I am,” said Dr. Merica. “Absolutely.”
“On the basis of what evidence?”
“A comparison of the child’s skull with a photograph taken of
Underhill.”
Bost’s assistant set up another photograph on the easel. It was a head-and-shoulders close-up of a tiny little boy, smiling broadly, the same photo I’d seen on Mrs. Underhill’s piano, only ten times bigger. There was a gap between his upper front teeth I hadn’t noticed before. I could see the big patch of red behind him: the suit of the Santa whose lap he was sitting on.
“And is this the photograph you used for comparison?” asked Bost.
“It is,” answered Merica.
Bost motioned to her assistant. The next photograph showed Teddy’s face superimposed over the image of a ghostly skull. Every feature synced with the structure of the bones beneath: eyes and eye sockets, cheeks and cheekbones, the point of his chin, the gap in his smile.
The jurors looked shocked. I was impressed. Maybe we hadn’t needed the second sneaker after all—even without a blood sample.
“And was it possible for you to determine any approximate time frame for when the child’s death occurred?” asked Bost.
“The state of his remains indicated that he had died somewhere between three to six months before his remains were discovered.”
“What else could you determine from your examination?”
“This was a battered child,” said Merica.
“How can you tell?”
“Teddy Underhill suffered extensive physical trauma