by R. G. Belsky
“She wants to tell the true story about everything.”
CHAPTER 21
THERE WAS A car waiting for me when I left Donna Grieco’s office and went back outside. Sitting on the street in front of her building. I recognized it. The blue car I’d seen earlier that I thought might be following me before. Except this time, it was doing more than following. The driver got out of the car and walked over to me. He was a good-looking guy with a stubble beard who reminded me a bit of a scruffy Brad Pitt.
“Clare Carlson?” he said.
“That depends?”
“On what?”
“Who you are.”
He reached into his pocket and showed me a badge and ID. It said: “Nick Pollock, Treasury Agent.” There was a picture of Nick Pollock, Treasury Agent on the ID. He was minus the stubble in the picture. But it definitely was him.
“Treasury Department?” I said. “Did I not pay my taxes or something?”
“I’d like to ask you a few questions, if that’s all right with you.”
“What kind of questions?”
“We’re investigating the death of Charles Hollister.”
“Hey, I know you’re not gonna believe this. But that’s what I’m doing too. What a coincidence, huh?”
He smiled. It was a nice smile.
“Maybe we could exchange information with each other,” he said.
“Maybe.”
“So let’s talk about it a bit.”
A short time later, we were sitting in a room at the Federal Building in Foley Square. Pollock had made it clear to me in his car on the way down that my appearance was voluntary. He said he was only hoping he could ask me a few questions that might help him in what the Treasury Department was working on. I was hoping he could help me by giving me information about why the Treasury Department might be interested in the death of Charles Hollister. We hadn’t said much on the ride downtown, feeling each other out, I guess, on what we were going to do during the conversation.
Now that we were at the Treasury Department offices, it was time to find out.
“Okay, tell me why you Treasury people are interested in Charles Hollister,” I blurted out to Pollock as soon as we sat down.
“If I tell you what I know about Hollister, you’ll tell me what you’re doing—and what you’ve found out—about him?”
“The exchange of information is vital in a free democracy,” I said.
He smiled again. I sure liked that smile. But I remembered I was here on business.
“Anything I tell you here has to be off the record. Is that acceptable?”
“I can live with off the record.”
“I have your word on that, right?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.”
I made an exaggerated gesture of crossing my heart to show him I meant it.
He smiled.
Again.
Yep, I could get used to that smile. But then I’ve always been a Brad Pitt fan.
“I can’t give you a lot of detail,” Pollock said. “But we have concerns that millions of dollars have gone unaccounted for in Hollister’s businesses. Pension funds that were supposed to be going to workers. Money that he should have been paying taxes on. We aren’t sure where the money went. But we believe it might have been moved to secret accounts. We’re still in the preliminary stages—that is, we hadn’t reached any real conclusions—but we notified Hollister about the investigation. We planned to question him soon. But then he was killed. Before we could talk to him again.”
I remembered now hearing about an SEC or Treasury Department. investigation into Hollister’s finances from the briefing Maggie had given me.
“Do you think his death had anything to do with your investigation?”
“On the face of it, since his wife has been charged with murder, there doesn’t seem to be any connection between that and the missing millions we’re trying to locate. But in a case like this you always …”
“Follow the money,” I said.
“Follow the money,” he repeated.
“Just like Woodward and Bernstein did as journalists in Watergate.”
“It works in my business too. Look, we have no reason to believe that’s the reason Hollister died. Especially since his wife is the one in jail for the murder. But we need to connect all the dots here to make sure. We’ve already talked to a lot of the same people you’ve talked to. That’s why we started watching you too. And watching what you’ve said on the air about this. You went to Hollister’s mistress. The private investigator he used—and that his wife then hired to spy on him. To Bert Stovall, the Hollister CEO. The Hollister kids. Now Bateman’s defense attorney. Everyone thinks it was Laurie Bateman who killed him. Out of jealousy and/or because she feared getting cut out of his estate in a divorce. So what are you looking for?”
“I don’t think Laurie Bateman did it.”
“What kind of evidence have you come up with to support your conclusion that Laurie Bateman is innocent?”
“Uh, I’m a little short on actual evidence at the moment.”
“Then why are you so sure she didn’t kill him?”
“My news instincts.”
“And your news instincts always turn out to be right?”
“Not always, but I’ve had my moments.”
“So I’ve heard.”
It turned out he knew all about me. Which wasn’t that surprising. I’d been in the news recently with a couple of big stories—plus the revelation about my daughter that had turned me into a media star.
But it was clear he’d also done his own homework before meeting me.
We talked about that for a while—and then got back to Charles Hollister.
“Okay, let me see if I’ve got this all now,” I said. “Hollister had a mistress who could have been jealous of his wife. The mistress had an ex-husband who was jealous of her relationship with Hollister. His son was upset that Laurie Bateman was still the primary beneficiary in his will at the time of his death. Hollister had a business rival who had vowed revenge against him for what he thought were dirty business tactics. You can throw a private investigator into the mix too; we don’t know what he knew or found out or did in dealing with Hollister and his wife. And now I find out that Hollister and his company were under investigation for millions of dollars in missing money. That sure leaves us with a lot of different scenarios for what could have happened to Charles Hollister.”
“What do you make of it all?” Pollock asked.
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave,” I said.
CHAPTER 22
THE NEXT DAY, I went to see William Carstairs at the District Attorney’s office to try to find out more about the case the DA was building against Laurie Bateman. I didn’t want to see Carstairs again. But I knew I had no choice. I had to sublimate my personal feelings for my professional obligations. No matter how much this jerk Carstairs pissed me off every time I talked to him.
The Manhattan DA’s office is located at 1 Hogan Plaza, which is downtown—a few blocks from City Hall. The front part of the building, which is on Centre Street, is the Criminal Courts section. It’s run-down and dismal. If you go in the building that way, you run into an army of drug pushers, prostitutes, pimps, and other lowlifes waiting for their court appearances. The Hogan Plaza entrance in the back is a lot more civilized. It’s used mainly by the DA’s people and law enforcement officials and the like. I went in the back.
I’d spent a lot of time in this building over the years. First, when I was a reporter covering crime and court cases for a newspaper. Then, more recently, when I was involved in a big story with the then-DA, a woman named Teri Hartwell. That wound up with a lot of indictments, including her own top aide for taking bribes. Hartwell and the aide were both gone now, and Carstairs seemed to be the rising star in the department. The retired judge who was district attorney now was clearly just a caretaker, and everyone figured Carstairs would be a candidate for the job one day soon.
When I got to his office, the secretary was one I hadn’t seen before. She was a pretty blond, wearing an outfit consisting of a short skirt and a low-cut top that didn’t leave a whole lot to the imagination. She didn’t look happy though. I wondered if Bill Carstairs was screwing her. He liked to screw everyone.
“I’m here to see William Carstairs,” I said to her.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No.”
“Does Mr. Carstairs know you?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Uh, how does he know you?”
“In the Biblical sense.”
“Excuse me?”
“I used to date him.”
“So, in other words, you have a personal relationship with Mr. Carstairs?”
“In ways you can only imagine.”
She smiled, but not like she thought it was funny. More like it was what she expected from Bill Carstairs.
“Just tell him Clare Carlson from Channel 10 is here to see him.”
A few minutes later, I was sitting with Bill Carstairs in his office. It was a corner office and had a nice view of the downtown courthouses and business buildings around them. Much nicer than the office he had when I was going out with him. Yep, this was a guy definitely on the way up. And I knew that he figured the Laurie Bateman prosecution was going to be the next big step in his rise to the top.
“Did you come to see me about that drink, Clare?”
“I came to ask you about the Laurie Bateman case.”
“Happy to tell you everything I know about it.”
“Good.”
“But, like I said the other day, you have to promise me you’ll go out for drinks with me.”
“Will your secretary outside be coming along with us?”
“Why would my secretary be there?”
“Because I expect we have so much in common. Like you, for instance.”
He smiled.
“Is that a yes or no?”
I sighed. I didn’t want to go out for drinks with Bill Carstairs. But I’ll do almost anything for a story. Even this.
“Maybe,” I said.
“C’mon, Clare, we’re only talking about a lousy drink here.”
“Okay, one drink. But only if you tell me everything you know right now.”
“No, not just a drink. An evening of drinks. And I mean real drinks. I don’t want you sitting there sipping a ginger ale for thirty seconds and running out on me.”
“I promise I’ll get totally bombed, jump up on a barstool, and start singing ‘Danny Boy.’ Now what do you know about the Laurie Bateman story?”
Carstairs leaned forward, looked around in an exaggerated gesture as if to make sure no one was listening, and then said in a conspiratorial-like low voice: “Laurie Bateman murdered her husband … end of story!”
Then he began to laugh uproariously.
I told him that I wasn’t as convinced as everyone else that Laurie Bateman did it. I pointed out that Charles Hollister had a mistress at the time of his death who might have been angry for him not spending enough time—or money—with her. And that she had an ex-husband who was jealous of that relationship. That Hollister had made a number of enemies in the business world with his cutthroat methods of deal-making. Then there was also his troubled son who was angry at Laurie Bateman for cutting him out of a big chunk of the family fortune. Having Laurie Bateman convicted and sent to jail for his murder would be awfully convenient for him in the estate battle.
“Do you have any actual evidence implicating any of these people as suspects?” Carstairs asked when I was finished.
“Evidence?’
“Yes, that’s what we call it in the justice system—facts instead of just speculation?’
“I’m still working on that.”
“Right. You have nothing. And so you come here and throw out all these names like an old Perry Mason show in hopes of diverting suspicion away from the obvious suspect who’s on trial. Do you think that by just asking a few questions out there you’re going to find out more than a team of trained investigators working on a case from this office?”
“I have before,” I pointed out.
“Except you had facts before. You had …”
“Evidence,” I said.
“That’s right.”
He leaned back in his chair now and looked triumphantly over at me. Gloating about it. I wanted to say something clever back to him, but I couldn’t think of anything.
“Me, I’ve got plenty of evidence,” Carstairs said. “Bateman’s gun was used to shoot him. She’d just found out from a private investigator that he was cheating on her with another woman. He was about to change his will and leave her nothing. Also, there was a divorce in the works with a very limited prenup settlement for her if he lived. That’s a lot of motive and a lot of evidence. Oh, and one more thing … the maid, Carmen Ortega, will testify that Laurie Bateman was the only other person there when she arrived and found Hollister murdered on the floor, with the pieces of the broken lamp used to hit him lying all around the body. And that Bateman was attempting to flee the crime scene until the maid called the police. Pretty convincing evidence, huh?”
I had no comeback for him on that either.
Later, he walked me out of his office, past the blond secretary’s desk. She still looked sullen. I felt sullen too. Maybe being around Bill Carstairs did that to you.
“Don’t be a stranger, Clare,” he was saying. “It’s good seeing you again. And don’t forget about those drinks you promised to have with me one night soon.”
“Will the evening be BYOH?” I asked.
“Huh?”
“Bring your own handcuffs?”
I thought I heard the secretary snickering behind me, but I wasn’t sure.
Carstairs just ignored it though and said: “If you find out anything else about Charles Hollister and Laurie Bateman, please come and tell me. I’m always happy to work with the media.”
“You’ll be the first person I tell, Billy boy.”
Then Bill Carstairs walked back into his office.
“Isn’t he the biggest asshole you ever met?” I said to the secretary after he was gone.
She was studying her nails. “No comment,” she said.
I headed for the door. When I got there, I turned around and saw the secretary smiling—really smiling—for the first time. She gave me a “thumbs-up” sign as I left.
I took that as a yes.
CHAPTER 23
WHEN I GOT back to the office, I found a message that Linda had called me. It always took me a second or two to realize who Linda was. My daughter. I mean I knew her name now was Linda, but I couldn’t stop thinking of her as Lucy. The little girl I’d given up for adoption when she was born, who went on to become Lucy Devlin—the most famous missing child ever—until I discovered her again as Linda. Linda Nesbitt.
I was glad to hear from her now. I’d been meaning to call her to tell her the exciting news about my job offer that could make me a national TV star. I wasn’t sure how a move to Los Angeles would affect us—since it would put me even farther away from her and my granddaughter, Audrey. But I figured we could talk about it. It was nice having a daughter I could talk with about things like this.
I called her back and she answered on the first ring. Like she was waiting for my call. That should have given me the first tip-off, I guess, that she had something important to discuss with me. But I was too wrapped up in my own big job offer to notice.
“I have news to tell you,” I said excitedly.
“I have news for you, too.”
“Let me go first because this news is really good.”
“My news is not good,” she said.
“What happened?” I asked anxiously. “Are you okay? Is Audrey …”
“We’re fine.”
“Well, then, what’s the news that isn’t good?”
“Let me tell you the whole story.”
She said she had recentl
y signed up for one of those genealogy sites where you sent in a sample of your DNA—and they gave you all sorts of information about your family history. She said she had gotten curious after finding out that I was her biological mother. She wanted to find out more about her background. My parents and grandparents, etcetera—and the ones on the side of her biological father, the man I’d had sex with in college that had resulted in her pregnancy. She thought it would be fun to find out more information. But the results she got back weren’t fun at all, she told me. They were very serious.
Now she might be my daughter, but she sure didn’t know how to put the lead in the first paragraph of a story, as we used to say when I worked at a newspaper.
I kept waiting until she finally got to the real news.
The results of the DNA test.
“The DNA test showed I have something called BRCA1. It’s a heredity gene that can result in breast cancer—or cancer in the ovaries—as a person grows older. Only about one in five hundred people have this gene. But, if you do have it, there’s a fifty-fifty chance you pass it on to your offspring. In my case, it dramatically increases the chance of me developing breast cancer as I get into my thirties and forties.”
“Are you all right now?” I asked anxiously.
“I’m fine. I went to a doctor who confirmed the results this morning. That’s why I’m calling you. There’s no indication of cancer at the moment. But I have to realize I’m in a high-risk category—and maintain surveillance on this as I get older. I’m twenty-nine right now, so I’ll move into the real danger range in a few years.”
“And Audrey? You said it was a heredity gene? Does this affect her? Does she have the gene, too?”
“No one knows for sure. She’s too young to be tested for it at the moment. But, like I said, there’s a fifty-fifty chance that it was passed on to her. She’ll need to be tested when she gets older.”
I squeezed hard on the phone, trying to absorb everything she was telling me.
It was all pretty much of a shock.
But not as much of a shock as what came next.