Carl felt a twinge, thinking Rick had suggested they sit down to save Carl from walking much farther. He could have told Rick that was unnecessary now. But Carl wanted Rick to notice for himself. It would look like Carl was fishing for reassurance if he brought the improvement up himself.
“So, have they got any new theories about Mattingly’s motive?” Carl asked.
“We’re still ruling out possible accomplices.”
“Did they run his DNA?”
“No family on CODIS.”
There was nothing surprising about the lack of a match on CODIS, the FBI’s national database of DNA. A person had to have been arrested, and in some states convicted, to be forced to give up DNA. The Bureau would always run a mass murderer’s DNA in its quest to track down accomplices, sometimes finding a family relationship to known terrorists who might have helped. But Mattingly came from an American prison guard family. Families like that needed to keep their records clean. Although Carl might have expected at least one DWI conviction among them.
“Do you have an iPad with you?” Carl asked.
“Yeah.” Rick pulled one from his backpack, punched in his password, and passed it to Carl.
Carl Googled Mattingly and chose the image page. “You’ve seen the family photo. The Christmas one with the whole family.” A statement, not a question.
“Who could miss it?”
“Have you noticed anything strange about it?” Carl passed the iPad back to Rick. “Just tell me your impressions.”
“He’s tall. A lot taller than his parents and his cousins. But there’s nothing strange about that. He’s also way better looking than his parents, even when they were young. I’ve seen some of their old photos.”
“Look at their eyes.”
Rick enlarged the photo with two fingers on the touchscreen. “The parents’ eye colors. Yes, we’ve seen that. It happens.”
“Right. But what are the odds of having blue eyes if both your parents and grandparents have brown?” Carl raised his hand, answering his own question. “Not impossible, but when you consider his eye color, his height, his intelligence—I find it intriguing.”
“He’s not adopted,” Rick said. “There’s no family court records in Orange County where the family lived, and he was born there at Newburgh General. Per the hospital records, the mother had a normal delivery. The parents were together when he was born; both their names are on the original birth certificate and the hospital records. So he wasn’t a stepchild to one of them. If anything, maybe he was a love child that Jason Mattingly raised as his own, either knowingly or unknowingly.”
“The real baby daddy isn’t going to step forward and claim that mistake now,” Carl said. “The infamy of being the parent of a mass murderer lasts long after the thrill of fame wears off.”
“We’ve talked about a sperm donor too.”
“Don’t couples who use sperm donors usually pick ones who look like the husband?”
“I guess, but a lot of the times, the sperm donor isn’t the donor the parents chose. Some of the fertility doctors have been unethical, even used their own sperm if they thought they’d have better success. There’s a doctor in Texas with hundreds of kids.”
“If a doctor were Mattingly’s biological father, it would at least explain his IQ,” Carl said.
Rick shrugged. “It doesn’t matter where his genes came from. We’re not focusing on it. When it comes to nature or nurture, nurture is what we care about. We need to give the public an explanation about how this guy came to the point of bombing a subway. We need to learn everything we can so the Behavioral Science Unit can create a profile that can help us prevent future attacks. It won’t add much to the story if they used a sperm donor.”
“Yeah, but maybe there’s more to this story …”
“That’s cool, yeah,” Rick said, more dismissively than Carl would have liked. “But there is something much more intriguing.”
Carl smiled. “What?”
“He was interested in our mayor.”
“Really? Interested how?”
“He showed up for his reelection inauguration. He had to stand outside. We have a photo of him. It was twenty degrees that day. It takes a high level of interest to travel two-plus hours and stand in the cold like that when you don’t even have a ticket to get in for the ceremony.”
“He’s not from the city,” Carl said, thinking it through. “That was before the mayor started campaigning nationally too.”
“Right,” Rick said. “It’s a very weird man-crush for a teenager.”
Carl agreed. “Derick Sullivan doesn’t even have much youth appeal.”
“It’s given us new angles to look at.”
CHAPTER
22
A WOMAN SITTING BEHIND a long reception desk asked Kathleen to have a seat. Kathleen took in the expansive Big Law reception area with its muted colors, overpriced paintings, and wall of windows overlooking Rockefeller Center. It was a new firm for Wayne Carrier, but nothing much had changed since the last time she’d visited him. Wayne had never been as respectable as his surroundings. He was a fixer—a guy who got things done and brought in billable hours. Any real legal work was done by others at the firm.
In her business, Kathleen saw a side of people that others didn’t. Some people were good at heart, like her late husband, even when he was hopelessly addicted. Others were sleazy and a natural fit for the underworld, even when they dressed up nicely and only went underground as tourists to visit whorehouses or drug dealers. Wayne was in the latter category, a chameleon who fit perfectly in both worlds. That changeability was probably his greatest asset, at least from a financial point of view. She imagined he had his fair share of Russian oligarchs for clients now. But you dealt with him at your own risk.
That was only one of the reasons Kathleen couldn’t include Emily in this. She hated lying to Emily again, but she needed to talk to Wayne privately and couldn’t tell Emily about it. Kathleen and Wayne were bound by a vow of secrecy.
Sitting on a leather couch in the firm’s reception area, she thought back to meeting Wayne. One of her best clients, code-named Client 13 in her proverbial black book, had referred her to Wayne to form an LLC for her business. That was one of the ironic things about being a madam: the men wanted no emotional connection with their sex partners, but a good madam was like a work-wife. The clients sought a relationship of trust with the madam, and everyone knew the madam had the black book to make that trust important. So it was natural for Client 13 to seek to ingratiate himself with her by sending her to one of his personal lawyers for help with her business needs.
Wayne had also been the one to draft her eventual contract with their mutual client, an NDA that handed her fifty thousand dollars and called for a million-dollar penalty if she ever told anyone the things she knew about the client. She didn’t mind signing an NDA, since she had no intention of talking about him. In her mind, it was free money.
“Ms. Harris.”
Wearing high-heeled pumps and a Jackie Kennedy red dress, a woman who must be Wayne’s secretary came to get Kathleen. The gender roles were as familiar as the decor. Kathleen had dressed for the occasion herself. If being in the Life had taught her one thing, it was how to compensate for people’s prejudices. Kathleen had dressed as a well-heeled client—confidently casual, linen slacks, a short blazer, and pumps. She carried a Coach shoulder bag large enough to transport an iPad and her personal effects.
Wayne stood when Kathleen and the secretary entered his office.
“Kathleen,” he said, coming around his desk to kiss her cheek. “Good to see you!”
“Wayne, how are you?”
He wore a black suit, tailored to fit a build that he’d kept up well for a man of close to sixty. His hair had begun to silver, which conveyed gravitas, not frailty.
“The years have treated you well. You look good,” she said.
He spread his hands, smiling. “I’m good. The kids are done with college. Onc
e we had an empty nest, my wife, Linda, launched a travel blog. Despite my naysaying, Linda’s done well. Sold it last year. The stars have aligned for us.”
“That’s good to hear.” Kathleen sat in the chair in front of his desk, and he returned to his seat.
“Best of all, I’ve been staying out of trouble, which has been no easy feat over the last few years,” Wayne went on. “Politicians have been arrested with more frequency than drug dealers. It’s made me quite the rainmaker here. I’ve pulled many of them in as clients for the firm, and I’ve managed to keep myself from becoming a target of investigation. Don’t get enmeshed with your clients. Stay the lawyer. That’s my motto.”
“Staying out of trouble is always a good thing.”
“I hope you’re not here for that. Trouble, I mean. I thought you’d retired. I was surprised to hear from you.”
“I’m happily retired, you’re right.” She watched Wayne’s eyes. “I’m here about Sharon. Sharon Williams.”
“Really?”
A tightening of his mouth. The slightest twitch, but Kathleen caught it.
“She’s dead,” she said.
“No! Jesus. I’m sorry,” he said somberly. “That’s terrible news.”
Kathleen made a mental note. He hadn’t seemed to know she was dead, but he wasn’t surprised either.
“What happened?”
“Murdered. Her throat was cut.”
He grimaced, a nauseous look. “I didn’t know you two were still close.”
“We were. Always.” Kathleen paused.
Wayne nodded and steepled his hands, talking as if he were reminiscing at a funeral. “Sharon always lived up to her agreement. Our friend was a smart one.”
“I always thought the nondisclosure agreements were overkill. Him burning money.”
For the most part, Client 13 had been standard fare. The girls never complained about roughness or him wanting to wear their underwear. What he did want, which was counterintuitive for a guy seeking a hooker, was exclusivity. He’d been a germaphobe, afraid of what he might catch if he shared a woman who’d recently had sex with others. Even in the age of AIDS, Kathleen had thought his predilection was more fastidiousness than rational caution.
His proclivities had resulted in a profitable financial arrangement for Kathleen. He’d bankrolled an apartment in Kathleen’s name for one woman each month, a pied-à-terre that would never be traceable to him. He paid a retainer for a woman to stay in the place and meet with him there on demand, a month at a time. Kathleen chose women for him who didn’t have personal lovers, since they needed to be monogamous for the month. Like her, they each signed an NDA with a penalty of a million dollars if they ever talked.
“The women liked the gig,” Kathleen said. “It was lucrative. Basically a monthlong vacation—one man, not even every day, and he would call first so they wouldn’t be tied to the apartment day and night. I used to give the job out as a reward to the most solid workers. They only needed to be stunningly beautiful with a clean medical report.”
“Sharon was certainly stunning,” Wayne said.
“Sharon was nearly the last girl.” Kathleen looked into Wayne’s eyes. “She called you the night she died.”
“Oh?” he asked warily.
“Were you representing her?”
“No.” He seemed to shift mental gears. “I wondered why she called. I wasn’t even sure it was her. I hadn’t spoken to her in years. I thought maybe she drunk-dialed my line, but my phone number has changed since the last time I spoke with her. She must have tracked me down here, so it seems unlikely she randomly drunk-dialed me. Maybe cocaine too? That would account for it. Cocaine and Google—a wicked combination.”
“She wasn’t a drunk or an addict,” Kathleen said. Why was it that people were trying to make Sharon out to be something she wasn’t? First, the police, assuming she was a streetwalker. Well, she didn’t seriously expect them to distinguish between a call girl and a streetwalker. They didn’t recognize the difference between survival sex for a desperate woman and a career choice either. But now Wayne was making Sharon out to be an addict in a spasm of irrational cocaine hyperactivity.
“I couldn’t get what she was talking about on the voice mail,” Wayne said. “She was incoherent.”
“She didn’t seem incoherent to me. I spoke with her moments after she called you.”
He shrugged. “Maybe it was a bad signal.”
“Do you have the message? I’d like to hear it.”
“I deleted it. There was no reason to think it was important.”
Kathleen folded her hands in her lap, letting Wayne see her impatience. “She called you and me the night she died. There was only one connection between the three of us.”
Wayne leaned forward, his voice edgy. “Just remember, Kat, you signed an NDA.”
“I know that.”
“It’s okay for you to talk to me, get it out of your system, but that’s it.” He stared at her meanly. “I expect this to be the last time you talk about it.”
Kathleen spoke with a severe tone she had once reserved for poorly behaved customers. “Of course. I don’t need to be schooled on the Life by a john, Wayne.”
Anger flashed across Wayne’s features, his lips pressed shut.
Kathleen rose to leave. “I think we’re done here.”
She strode out of the office without looking at Wayne. It was ironic that men thought they were superior to sex workers when they were the ones who had to pay for it. She felt some catharsis from sticking a pin in Wayne’s puffed-up testosterone bubble.
But she also knew there was often a cost to getting the last word, and she wished their meeting had been more productive. She paused in front of the building and took a deep breath of fresh air—a cleansing breath, as they called it in yoga—before she headed to the subway.
CHAPTER
23
Before
JACKSON SAT AT a weather-worn picnic table in his backyard, laptop open. Pink sky. Crabgrass and dust underfoot. The picnic table and a pockmarked charcoal grill were the only backyard accoutrements. He could barely stand to be inside the house, listening to his father hacking away, smoker’s lungs scarred and wheezing. Luckily, the Wi-Fi reached the backyard.
Jackson reread the DNA report from XFactor.com. There were eleven probable cousins, three of them supposedly close cousins. And there was one common thread among them: they were complete strangers to Jackson. Not a single Mattingly. Not even one familiar name. The list confirmed it. He was trapped in somebody else’s life.
He’d Googled each of the possible cousins but hadn’t been able to find out much. They had last names like Johnson and Roberts matched with first names like John, Sara, and Leslie. Dozens of Facebook pages came up for each name. Some were actors with IMDb pages. Others had LinkedIn pages and seemed accomplished. Some were nobodies. There was no way to tell which ones were the relatives and whether they were worth knowing, except by emailing the addresses XFactor had provided.
He copied and pasted to create eleven identical emails. He told each cousin that he was adopted and looking for his biological parents. He used the same alias he’d used when he signed up with XFactor. Privacy was power, either in his own hands or in someone else’s. Privacy was even more vital now, because he didn’t understand why his parents had seemed so scared when he questioned them about his birth. He didn’t know where the threat lay, so he had to guard himself. Plus, he didn’t want to end up like the Golden State Killer, caught through DNA on a commercial website. Jackson had no idea where his own life would lead him and wanted as small a traceable footprint as possible. That was ultimately why he’d chosen XFactor for his genetic testing—they accepted Bitcoin, which he’d had no trouble buying on the web.
Jackson hit send on each email, lit a cigarette, and looked out at green Mount Beacon beyond the graying picket fence that surrounded his yard.
An email appeared in his in-box before his cigarette had burned halfway down. E
xcitement shot through him, but the response had been at stalker speed, worrying him. The last thing he wanted was crazy knuckleheads entering his life and never leaving. Another good reason to use an alias: perfect for ghosting.
He read the email: Welcome to the family. I live in Charleston, South Carolina.
The distant cousin wrote that their common ancestor had been a founding father of Charleston hundreds of years ago and that the family had a hospital named after them. She’s gotta be shitting me. He grinned, feeling a fizzy glee like a soda can shaken up inside his skull. She was saying that he was a descendent of an important family. He called the phone number.
* * *
The woman was bubbly, a big talker with a southern accent. She sounded as old as his mother, with the scratchy voice quality of a person whose larynx was nearing its expiration date.
“We have an ancestor that goes back over eight hundred years to England, before the family moved to Charleston,” she said. “I’ve traced the family tree pretty far, using news clips and public records to supplement the DNA. There’s a branch of the family that ended up in New York, where you are, about two hundred years ago. Another group moved up there too, after World War II, during Jim Crow.”
Jackson thought that through, not really getting the Jim Crow reference. “But how do I narrow things down further?” he asked. “I’m trying to find my birth family.”
She paused. “Are you Black?”
That confused him. “Uh, no.”
“Okay, so you haven’t hit pay dirt here. I’m from the Black side. Descendants of the same white man as you and a Black woman on his plantation.”
“Yeah?” Jackson’s excitement plummeted.
Gone by Morning Page 10