Chapter 7: The Woman Who Remembered Everything
Her name was Patricia Osei, and she worked out of a two-room office above a dry cleaner on Fulton Street.
She had been a financial crimes investigator for the city attorney's office for nineteen years before she left to open her own practice.
The city attorney's office had not been sorry to see her go.
She had made too many people uncomfortable for too many years.
She was sixty-two, small, and wore reading glasses on a beaded chain around her neck.
When Renee and Destiny walked in, she was already on the phone.
She held up one finger, finished her call in under a minute, and set the phone down.
"Renee." She stood.
"It's been a long time."
"Three years," Renee said.
"Sit down.
Both of you." She looked at Destiny.
"You must be Marcus's girl."
Destiny sat.
"You knew my father?"
"I knew his case.
Which is almost the same thing." Patricia settled back into her chair and folded her hands on the desk.
"Tell me what happened today.
All of it.
Don't leave anything out."
Renee told her.
Destiny filled in the parts her mother hadn't seen — the man at the café table, the note, the way Gerald Harwell's smile had stayed perfectly in place until the moment Destiny mentioned the missing witness.
Patricia listened without interrupting.
When they finished, she was quiet for a moment.
"The man who left the note," she said.
"Describe him."
Destiny described him.
The suit.
The coffee cup.
The way he had been watching her before anything had even escalated.
Patricia opened a desk drawer and pulled out a manila folder.
She laid three photographs on the desk, face up.
"Any of these?"
Destiny leaned forward.
Pointed immediately to the one on the left.
Patricia nodded slowly.
She picked the photograph up and looked at it herself, though she clearly already knew whose face it was.
"His name is Thomas Vey.
He's Gerald Harwell's head of internal compliance." She set the photo back down.
"He was also your father's direct supervisor."
The room was very quiet.
"He left me a warning," Destiny said.
"Why would he warn me?"
"Because Thomas Vey has been trying to get out from under Gerald Harwell for two years," Patricia said.
"He knows what happened to your father.
I believe he's known for a long time." She took off her reading glasses and set them on the desk.
"The problem is that knowing something and being able to prove it are two very different things."
"What do you need to prove it?" Renee asked.
Patricia looked at her steadily.
"I need Thomas Vey to talk to me directly.
And I need whatever Diane was doing in that plaza today — because I don't believe for one second that she was there by accident."
Destiny reached into her jacket pocket.
She placed the folded note on Patricia's desk.
Patricia read it.
Set it down.
"He said he'd find you," she said.
"Yes."
May you like
"Good." Patricia picked up her phone.
"Then let's make sure he does."
