The Twelfth Card

“We headed south but came to a railroad crossing we hadn’t noticed. This freight train was stopped. We turned around and took some roads that weren’t on the map and had to go through a field. We got two flats and ran off on foot. The cops caught up with us a half hour later. Joey said let’s fight and I said no and called out we were giving up. But Joey got mad and shot me in the leg. The state troopers thought we were shooting at them. That was the attempted murder.”

“Crime don’t pay,” Dellray said, with the intonation, if not the grammar, of the amateur philosopher that he was.

“We were in a holding cell for a week, ten days ’fore they let me make a phone call. I couldn’t call Venus anyway; our phone’d been shut off. My lawyer was some Legal Aid kid who didn’t do shit for me. I called some friends but nobody could find Venus or Geneva. They’d been kicked out of our apartment.

“I wrote letters from prison. They kept coming back. I called everybody I could think of. I wanted to find her so bad! Geneva’s mother and me lost a baby a while ago. And then I lost Geneva when I went into the system. I wanted my family back.

“After I got released I came here to look for her. Even spent what paper I had on this old computer to see if I could find her on the Internet or something. But I didn’t have any luck. All I heard was Venus was dead and Geneva was gone. It’s easy to fall through the cracks in Harlem. I couldn’t find my aunt either, who they stayed with some. Then yesterday morning this woman I know from the old days, works in Midtown, saw this hubbub at that black museum, some girl getting attacked and heard her name was Geneva and she was sixteen and lived in Harlem. She knew I was looking for my girl and called. I got myself hooked up with this claimer hangs out Uptown and he checked out the schools yesterday. Found out she went to Langston Hughes High. I went there to find her.”

“When they spotted you,” Sellitto said. “By the school yard.”

“That’s right. I was there. When y’all came after me I took off. But I went back and found out from this kid where she lived, over in West Harlem, by Morningside. I went there today, was going to leave the books but I saw you put her in a car and take off.” He nodded at Bell.

The detective frowned. “You were pushing a cart.”

“I was fronting that, yeah. I got a cab and followed y’all here.”

“With a gun,” Bell pointed out.

He snapped, “Somebody’d tried to hurt my little girl! Hells yeah, I got myself that piece. I wasn’t going to let anything happen to her.”

“You use it?” Rhyme asked. “The weapon?”

“No.”

“We’re going to test it.”

“All I did was pull it out and scare that asshole kid told me where Geneva lived, boy name of Kevin, who was speaking bad about my girl. Worst that happened to him was he peed his pants when I pointed it at him…which he deserved. But that’s all I did – ’side from busting him up some. You can track him down and ask him.”

“What’s her name, the woman who called you yesterday?”

“Betty Carlson. She works next to the museum.” He nodded at his phone. “Her number’s on the incoming-call list. Seven-one-eight – that’s the area code.”

Sellitto took the man’s mobile and stepped into the hallway.

“What about your family in Chicago?”

“My what?” He frowned.

“ Geneva ’s mother said you moved to Chicago with somebody, married her,” Sachs explained.

Jax closed his eyes in disgust. “No, no…That was a lie. I never even been to Chicago. Venus must’ve told her that to poison the girl against me… That woman, why’d I ever fall in love with her?”

Then Rhyme glanced at Cooper. “Call DOC.”

“No, no, please,” Jax said, his face desperate. “They’ll violate me back. I can’t be outside twenty-five miles of Buffalo. I asked permission to leave the jurisdiction twice and both times they denied it. I came anyway.”

Cooper considered this. “I can run him through the general DOC database. It’ll look routine. The P.O.’s won’t see it.”

Rhyme nodded. A moment later a picture of Alonzo Jackson and his record popped up on the screen. Cooper read it. “Confirms what he said. Good-behavior timely discharge. Got himself some college credits. And there’s reference to a daughter, Geneva Settle, as next of kin.”

“Thank you for that,” Jax said, relieved.

“What’s with the books?”

“I couldn’t come up to y’all and just say who I was – I’d get violated back – so I got copies of a bunch of books Geneva read when she was young. So she’d know the note was really from me.”

“What note?”

“Wrote her a note, put it in one of the books.”

Cooper rummaged through the bag. In a battered copy of The Secret Garden was a slip of paper. In careful handwriting were the words: Gen baby, this is from your father. Please call me. Beneath this message was his phone number.

Sellitto stepped back into the doorway. He nodded. “Talked to the Carlson woman. Everything he said checks out.”

Rhyme asked, “Geneva’s mother was your girlfriend, not wife. That’s why Geneva’s not ‘Jackson’?”

“That’s right.”

“Where do you live?” Bell asked.

“Got a room in Harlem. A Hundred Thirty-sixth. Once I found Geneva I was going to bring her back to Buffalo till I got permission to come back home.” His face grew still and Rhyme saw what he believed was pure sorrow in his eyes. “But I don’t think there’s much chance of that happening now.”

“Why?” Sachs asked.

Jax gave a wistful grin. “I saw where she lives, that nice place near Morningside. I was happy for her, of course, real happy. She’ll have herself two good foster parents taking care of her, maybe a brother or sister, which she always wanted but that didn’t work out, after Venus had such a bad time at the clinic. Why’d Geneva wanta come back with me? She’s got the life she deserves, everything I couldn’t give her.”

Rhyme glanced at Sachs with a raised eyebrow. Jax didn’t catch it.

His story was sounding legit to Rhyme. But he had a thick vein of policeman’s skepticism in him. “I want to ask you a few questions.”

“Anything.”

“Who’s the aunt you mentioned?”

“My father’s sister. Lilly Hall. She helped raise me. Widow twice over. She’d’ve turned ninety this year. August. If she’s still with us.”

Rhyme had no clue about her age or birthday but that was the name Geneva had given them. “She’s still alive, yes.”

A smile. “I’m glad about that. I’ve missed her. I couldn’t find her either.”

Bell said, “You told Geneva something about the word ‘sir.’ What would that’ve been?”

“I told her even when she was little to look people in the eye and always be respectful, but never to call anyone ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ unless they earned it.”

The Carolina detective nodded to Rhyme and Sachs.

The criminalist asked, “Who’s Charles Singleton?”

Jax blinked in surprise. “How d’you know about him?”

“Answer the man, scurv,” Dellray snapped.

“He’s my, I don’t know, great-great-great-great-grandfather or something.”

“Keep going,” Rhyme encouraged.

“Well, he was a slave in Virginia. His master freed him and his wife and gave ’em a farm up north. Then he volunteered to be in the Civil War, you know, like in that movie Glory. He came back home after, worked his orchard and taught at his school – an African free school. Made money selling cider to workers building boats up the road from his farm. I know he got medals in the war. He even met Abraham Lincoln once in Richmond. Just after the Union troops took it over. Or that’s what my daddy said.” Another sad laugh. “Then there was this story he got himself arrested for stealing some gold or payroll or something and went to jail. Just like me.”

“Do you know what happened to him after prison?”

“No. Never heard anything about that. So, you believe that I’m Geneva’s father?”

Dellray looked at Rhyme, cocked an eyebrow.