Excerpt of Trace of Innocence by Erica Orloff

Blood spatter was artfully arranged.

Photographs of crime-scene blood spatter, in stark black
and white, were matted and framed, lining a long hallway
with hardwood floors that squeaked as I walked.

I had stopped thinking of the photos as gruesome or even
odd two years ago when I started working for Lewis
LeBarge, my boss at New Jersey's State Crime Laboratory
and collector of all things macabre. He told me once that
it came with the territory. "Spend enough time around the
dead," he had said to me, his New Orleans accent giving
him a certain Southern charm, "and eventually you come up
with ways to mock the Grim Reaper — just to let him know
he hasn't won…yet." Lewis regularly talked to The Reaper
like an old friend, asking him just how or why a dead body
met its maker.

"Lewis?" I called out from the hallway. I had let myself
in the front door of his old duplex in Weehawken.

"Up here," he called out. "The office."

I climbed the stairs. There were just two small bedrooms
on the second story. One was the master bedroom, and the
other he used as a home office, complete with Internet
links to our database in the lab.

I poked my head in. "Ready?"

"For you, darlin', always." He winked at me, his
prematurely gray hair giving him a distinguished look,
making him seem older than his forty years.

I spied a new photo on the wall. The blood puddle next to
the gunshot victim looked like black syrup. "Has anyone
ever suggested to you that perhaps the reason you never
make it past the first date with a woman is your taste in
art?"

"Now, Billie, I'm just waitin' for you to realize we're
the ones meant to be together.And until then —" he mock-
sighed " — I remain alone and desperately lonely in this
cold Northern city."

"Don't give me that…your New Orleans gentleman charm is a
magnet for women. I've seen them clustered around you like
bees buzzing around a flower."

"I never hurt for first dates, but, as you so kindly
pointed out, it's getting to date number two that's
difficult."

I looked over at the aquarium tank on the shelf, which
housed an enormous tarantula he had named "Ripper," after
the serial killer he once wrote a thesis on. I'm not
squeamish — you can't be, working in a forensics lab — but
spiders give me the creeps. Especially hairy ones.

"Maybe you should try telling them you do something sane.
Boring, even. Ever try saying you're an accountant?
Working with numbers all day is certainly an improvement
over saying you spent the day examining brain matter."

"Eventually, I'd be found out. And with the exception of
you, there aren't many women who enjoy discussin'
blowflies on dead bodies and the rate of maggot
infestation over a lovely supper of jambalaya."

"Really? I would have thought some women would love to
hear all about it. Especially while eating." I rolled my
eyes. "I've got you figured out. You, dear Lewis, love to
scare them off."

"Perhaps I do." He winked at me. "How's that cop you've
been dating?"

"Good…when he's on the wagon."

"And when he's not?"

"Come on, Lewis, neither of us has a stellar track record
in the love department."

"We're both married to the job."

"I suppose we are. You ready?"

"Darlin', I wouldn't miss this chance to mingle with the
underworld of New Jersey for anything. Your family is like
an anthropological field study."

"Shut up," I snapped, but grinned at him as he stood up,
ducking his head slightly to avoid hitting the overhead
lamp. Lewis stood a lanky six foot two inches in his
custom cowboy boots. He wore his standard-issue black
Levi's and white oxford cloth shirt, well-worn at the
elbows, with a pair of black onyx cuff links I swear he
put on every shirt he wore. He turned off the lamp and the
two of us made our way downstairs and out the door. My big
maroon Cadillac was parked on the street.

"Still driving the Sherman land tank, I see."

"I can't part with it — despite how much gas this thing
guzzles. My uncle Sean left it to me when he went inside."

"Inside," Lewis mused, as he climbed in the car Uncle Sean
gave me when he drew thirty years for aggravated assault
and murder — he'd not only killed his victim, but taken a
hacksaw to him. "I do love how the Quinn family has such
special euphemisms — like this party we're going to."

"What? It's a Welcome Home party for my father. What's
wrong with that?"

"You mean a Welcome Home from Rahway Prison party. But no
doubt your aunt Helen will make one of her wonderful
cheesecakes for the occasion. I'm fond of the strawberry
one. Very moist."

"Lewis, it's still a coming-home party, no matter where he
was prior to actually coming home. Besides, this time was
really stupid. A parole violation…busted at an illegal
card game. I mean, come off it. You sometimes sit in with
them, too."

I started the car and pulled away from the curb, biting my
lip in irritation for a minute. There was nothing I hated
more than cops going after bullshit crimes when murderers
and child molesters were a plague.

Lewis leaned back against the plush velour seats. "Well,
all I can say is family parties with y'all is like
stepping into a Scorsese film. I love bein' around your
relatives. They are quite entertainin'."

I drove from Lewis's place to JFK Boulevard and eventually
steered my way toward Hoboken, coping with heavy traffic.

"But you know, Billie, I've still never understood how it
is you managed to turn out…honest and law-abiding, if a
little unusual around the edges."

I shrugged, staring ahead at the highway. "I don't know."

"Come on, I know you've thought about it. You must have
some explanation."

I had thought about it. Endlessly. Until my head hurt,
sometimes. My mother had disappeared when I was nine. The
cops had bungled the case, more interested in focusing on
my father — head of an Irish crime family — than in
uncovering the truth. When her body turned up six months
later — nothing left but bones and the shreds of her
dress — they arrested the wrong man, eventually freeing
him without the case going to trial when his alibi was
airtight. He'd been sitting in county lockup the night of
her murder, on a DUI charge.

"I don't know, Lewis, I just wanted to solve murders. And
if I became a cop, my family would have disowned me. So
working for you is about as close as I can get to fighting
the bad guys legally. Why did you go into forensics?"

"You know. An obsession with blood and guts. Liked to
drive my mama mad with bring-in' home dead animals."

Of course, I knew Lewis's reasons ran as deep as my own.
He'd been at Tufts, bent on an academic career as a
scientist and college professor when the bayous of
Louisiana began giving up their dead. One by one, floaters
came to the surface, women tortured and murdered by a
serial killer. One of the dead was his childhood
sweetheart. His path changed, and he never looked back.

The two of us drove through the streets of Hoboken to
Quinn's Pub, owned by my father's brother, Tony. If "pub"
conjures up images of darts and leather booths, that's not
Quinn's. It's a rough bar you don't go to unless you know
Tony — or can hold your own among the tough guys who hang
there after long shifts driving cement mixers, or
otherwise breaking their backs earning a living. It's one
of the last neighborhood places around. I parked the car
around the corner on the street and the two of us made our
way to the entrance. The sidewalks were already teeming
with relatives and pals of my dad.

"Billie!" Tony threw his rock-hard, tattooed arms around
me as we maneuvered our way inside, squeezing past the
crowds. "Your dad's at the tables. How you doin', Lewis?"

"Fine, just fine," Lewis said, smiling and taking a bottle
of beer offered to him by Pammie, a waitress in skin-tight
black jeans and a Quinn's Pub T-shirt — black with a green
shamrock embroidered on the chest. I saw her eye him
flirtatiously.

I took Lewis's other hand so I wouldn't lose him as we
snaked our way through the bar. We reached the back room,
with its four pool tables. Dad was about to sink his last
ball into the corner pocket. He let out a whoop when it
went in, the ball spinning fast, and collected his forty
bucks from his opponent. Then he spotted me and came over
and planted a kiss on the top of my head.