Heather made some answer, but Zachary didn’t hear what it was. Ella’s typing suddenly got louder and sharper, like the final percussions in an anthem. They both looked over at her, looking for a change in her expression.
“Yes,” Ella said. “We can narrow it down to one family tree.”
Heather sat straight up in her seat. “Who?” she asked. “What is the family name?”
Despite the fact that her attacker had been masked, it could still have been someone that Heather knew. Someone who was afraid that she would recognize him. It was thirty years later, but she might still remember the name and be able to match it to a face or role in the neighborhood.
“Reid-Clark,” Ella said, staring intently at her screen, clicking with her mouse and tapping in various searches or commands. “Looks like a union between Reid-Clark and Astor…”
It took Zachary a few seconds to compute this. He looked at Heather. Heather was looking at Ella, her face blank and expressionless.
“Heather…? The family you were living with was the Astors. Was there someone who was related to them?” Zachary asked.
“No,” she said flatly.
“Your foster mother was in the delivery room with you. Was she the one who put the mittens on the baby? Is it possible that she got her DNA in the mittens when she put them on?”
Heather shook her head.
Ella looked up from her computer at Zachary with an irritated expression. “Don’t confuse things,” she said sharply. “This is male DNA, not female. And Mrs. Astor would not actually be an Astor if that was her married name. It has to be her husband or someone from his line.”
“Heather…?”
Heather was blank. Silent. Her eyes didn’t move. Her knees no longer bounced up and down with nervous anticipation.
“Heather, was Mr. Astor at the hospital? Did he handle the mittens?”
“No.”
Zachary looked back at Ella, trying to connect with her to get more information and her read on the situation. She was staring at her computer screen and paid him no attention.
“Feathers,” Zachary tried her nickname to pull Heather out of the trance. He knew what it was like to get so wrapped up in his brain and his feelings that he couldn’t escape the thoughts. “We’re here together, Feathers. It’s Zachary. We’re having tea with Ella. Do you smell the tea?”
There was a flicker of life in her face. In a moment, she looked down at the cup of tea in front of her. She picked it up, took a sip, and again gave a grimace at the taste.
“Do you want some sugar or cream in that?” Zachary looked at the tray Ella had placed on the table. “Some honey? Lemon?”
Despite the fact that she didn’t respond, he reached over and squeezed one of the lemon wedges over his own tea, squeezing the rind hard to spray the pungent oils into the air. “Do you want some lemon in yours?”
Heather shook her head. She reached out and touched the outside of the rind as he put it down. She licked the oil off of her finger and wrinkled her nose at the bitterness.
“Heather.” He put his hand on her arm. “What do you remember? You told Able that the Astors didn’t molest you.”
“No, they didn’t.”
“The story about you being attacked in the woods… was that what they told you happened? Did you remember that, or did they plant it?”
“You think I don’t know what happened to me?”
“I think memories can be manipulated. If you’re told something enough times and in enough detail, then that’s what you remember. Especially if you were in a vulnerable state. You were traumatized. If you were given drugs or alcohol and given their version of what happened, that’s what you would remember.”
“No. It’s not a fake memory. They didn’t tell me what happened, I told them.”
Zachary thought about the police file, about the things that Heather had said in her statement, the mother being the one to take her to the police, the pictures of what had been done to her. He remembered the scrapes on her back from the rough ground, the leaves and grass tangled in her hair. That hadn’t been staged.
“The man who attacked you wore a mask. Could it have been your foster father or one of the sons?”
Heather stood up abruptly. “I have to go.”
“You want me to take you home?” Zachary had picked her up from her house. He’d been worried that she would be too emotionally overwrought after the visit to the genealogist, and he was not happy to have been right. He hadn’t been expecting the revelation.
“I want to go home,” Heather echoed.
There were still no tears, no raised voice. Ella was watching them, a little M frown line appearing above the bridge of her nose.
“I’ll be in touch,” Zachary told her. “I’m sorry this is so abrupt. I’ll call you.”
She nodded and didn’t try to stop them from going. Zachary wondered if her clients always got so emotional. Maybe that was the reason for the soothing atmosphere and the tea. It wasn’t a show, she knew it would be an emotionally taxing visit, even if Heather had just been there to try to track down her child.
Zachary took Heather by the arm, leading her out to the car like she was a frail old woman. She walked like a sleepwalker, not looking at him, not looking to the right or to the left. Zachary unlocked the car, opened her door for her, and warned her not to bump her head as he guided her into the seat. He shut her door and returned to the driver’s side. She automatically pulled her seatbelt across, and Zachary made sure that it clicked into place.
“Do you want something on the radio? Do you want to talk?”
She didn’t answer.
Zachary pondered as he drove her home. It was a shame that Grant hadn’t been able to go to the meeting with her. He didn’t like to take her back to an empty house with whatever emotions she was going through, finding out that her attacker that day had not been a stranger, but one of the men living under her own roof.
Heather started to rock forward and back. There were still no tears. Zachary tried to keep up a running description to her of the things he was seeing, hearing, and smelling around them, hoping to keep her anchored in the physical world, not stuck in flashbacks of the assault.
How could someone she had lived with not only rape her, but also beat her up so badly? Someone who was supposed to be caring for her and being a loving and kind father or brother? He had lain in wait for her, obviously knowing that she broke the school rule and walked through the park every day. He had worn a mask so she wouldn’t be able to identify him, had brutally assaulted her, and then he had lived with her afterward, watching her growing large with his child.
She had to feel devastated. Betrayed. The police had told her that it was her own fault, and now she knew it had been her own foster father or brother.
“Can we call Grant? I’ll stay with you until he can come home.”
“He’ll be home soon. Maybe even before we get back.”
Her voice was so calm and measured that someone who didn’t know her or the effect that shock could have would have thought that she was unconcerned and feeling no distress over the revelation of her attacker’s identity. Zachary understood that the opposite was true. She was so overwhelmed by the news that it had pushed her over the edge. Past being able to feel it or express it.
“Do you want to call your therapist? Or a hotline? Do you have tranquilizers?”
“I’ll talk to Grant. It will be okay.”
Zachary kept talking to her, kept trying to keep her engaged. When he parked at the curb in front of her house, Zachary pulled his key out of the ignition and released his seatbelt to walk her into the house. She reached for her door handle.
“It’s fine, Zachary.” She indicated the blue car in the driveway. “Grant is home.”
“I’ll just walk you in, make sure he knows what happened.”
“No,” she insisted. “Let me speak for myself.”
Back when it had happened, she hadn’t been allowed to speak for he
rself. She’d done what her foster mother and social worker had told her to and had not been allowed to make her own decisions. Zachary had to allow her the chance to have her own voice.
“You’re sure you’ll be okay?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Heather.” He stopped her one last time before she could walk away.
“What?”
“Do you know which one it was?”
She stared at him for a long moment, her expression still completely blank and unreadable.
“Thank you for your help today, Zach. And for all the rest. I don’t know how I could have done it without you.”
29
He didn’t feel good about leaving Heather alone after receiving such shattering news. But he had to keep reminding himself that she wasn’t alone. Her husband was there. He had been fully supportive of her since she had told him about what had happened to her as a child, and he would be there for her now, giving her whatever comfort she needed.
But he didn’t get all the way home before finally breaking down and calling her to make sure she was okay. There was no answer. She was probably working it through with Grant, hugging, crying, letting out all of the emotion she had been stuffing down for thirty years. It wasn’t a good time to talk to Zachary. She needed to be with her husband, not her brother.
He called again when he got back to his apartment. Again, no answer. Zachary was getting uneasy. She must know how worried he would be. Couldn’t she at least answer to say that she was okay? She must be finished crying. He hung up and tried again immediately. He anxiously checked for text messages, emails, or messages in social networking platforms. She hadn’t sent him anything. There was nothing to reassure him.
What if it hadn’t been Grant’s car in the driveway? What if she’d lied to him about someone else being home and had planned to harm herself once he was out of the way? She could already have bled out, or her respiration could be getting too slow after taking pills. Or she could have chosen another way to exit the life that she couldn’t bear anymore.
He concentrated, trying to remember his previous visit to her house. Had the car been in the driveway? What had she driven when she met him at the police station? The dark blue car? Uneasy, he called her again.
When there was no answer, he changed tactics. Firing up his browser, he started searching for Grant Garrity. Luckily, the man had an electronic trail a mile wide and it only took Zachary a few minutes to find his phone number.
“Hello?” Grant’s voice rang in Zachary’s ear, too cheerful to have been comforting his wife for the last hour. Zachary’s stomach knotted.
“Grant, this is Zachary Goldman.”
“Oh, hi, Zach. Is Heather with you, then?”
“No. I dropped her off at home. She said you were there already.”
“I just got here,” Grant said, confirming what Zachary had feared. “She’s not home.”
Zachary swore under his breath. He didn’t want to panic Grant, but he was starting to panic himself.
“She said that you were home. She’s not answering her phone and I’m worried about her. If she lied to me about you being home… you’re sure she’s not there? In the bedroom or bathroom? I’m worried… she might have done something.”
All cheer had left Grant’s voice. Zachary could picture him, his face ashen. “No… I just called out. She didn’t answer. I didn’t think…”
Zachary could hear him pounding up the stairs. He could hear doors opening and closing. After a few minutes, he was back. “I don’t know where she is, but she’s definitely not home. Her car is gone. What happened? Why would she…?”
“You know that we were meeting with the genealogist today to see if we could get a hit in the GENEmatch database.”
There was a moment of silence from Grant. “No. She didn’t tell me that was today.”
“She said you were busy at work and couldn’t come.”
“I had work, but I could have gotten off to come with her. Why would she say that?”
Zachary’s brain was spinning. Had Heather known, consciously or unconsciously, what she was going to find? Had part of her brain known all that time who it was that had assaulted her in the park? She might have recognized him by something other than his face. His aftershave. The way he moved. A ring on his finger, belt buckle, shoes. Heather might have been subconsciously repressing it all along.
“I don’t know why she wouldn’t have told you. Maybe she was confused and thought you had something else going on today. Did she leave you a note? Send you a message or leave a voicemail?”
“No… I don’t think so. I don’t see anything. She’s usually here when I get home from work.”
“Does she know how to reach her old foster family? The Astors?”
“No.” This answer, after all of his uncertain and hesitant replies, was immediate and strong. “She didn’t keep in contact with them. I always thought it was a little strange that she wouldn’t have anything to do with them, after living with them for a couple of years. But after hearing what she went through when she was there… well, I can understand it a bit better. I’m sure they were only trying to help her and do the right thing when they forced her to give the baby up, but I think she felt like… it was adding insult to injury.”
“You don’t have any idea where they are now?”
“Why…? I don’t know where they are. I don’t know if she ever heard anything, but it wasn’t like they moved in the same circles.”
“Okay. I’ll see what I can find.”
“I’ll have her give you a call back when she gets home,” Grant said, acting as if Zachary were just making a social call.
“Grant.” Zachary stopped him from hanging up.
“Yes?”
“Do either of you own a gun?”
“Yes, of course. Heather was always afraid of getting mugged when she was out with the kids or by herself. She’s carried one for years. I never really knew why until now, but I felt better knowing she could protect herself if she needed to. You think she’s going to need it? What’s going on?”
“Grant… the man who raped and beat Heather was one of the Astors.”
Grant swallowed his curse, making it impossible for Zachary to tell for sure what he had said. “And you think… she’s gone after them?”
“That’s why I asked if she knew where they lived.”
“But she doesn’t. I’m sure of it.”
“She might have had some idea… and I’ve been teaching her how to skip trace. Do you have any sense of which one of them it would be? Did she ever say anything that would have put one of them higher on your list than another?”
“She never talked about them. About any of them.”
“Even when she was telling you about what happened to her? It might have been very brief, even just a sense that she was afraid of men of a certain age. Would she react more to a forty-year-old or a teen?”
“I don’t know… if I had to pick one, I would say a forty-year-old. But she never mentioned them. I don’t even know their names.”
Zachary flipped through the file on his desk. He had printed out all of the documents he had taken pictures of, the ones that had originally resided in the police file. “Hang on a second. Their names. That could be an important piece of information.”
Grant waited. Zachary skimmed the pages, looking for the original reports that had been made, which listed household members. “Okay. Kevin, Mark, and Robert.”
“Uh… Robert… I suggested it as a name for our son. My grandfather was named Robert. But she wasn’t having it. She said there was no way our son was going to be named Robert.”
“No objection to Mark or Kevin?”
“I don’t remember either of them ever coming up. We have a family friend named Mark… I have a nephew named Kevin… she’s never said anything about the names bothering her or not wanting to be around them. Just Robert. That she’d never allow her son to be named Robert.”
“Ok
ay, that’s a pretty good guess, then.” Zachary checked the file. Robert was the father. Heather’s foster father, likely her attacker. He couldn’t believe it.
“What are you going to do?” Grant asked.
“I’m going to track him down. Find out where he is now. And get over there.”
“Can I come? I can help. I know Heather better than anyone.”
Except that he hadn’t even known her secret. Not for thirty years. “I’ll call you when I know something,” he promised. “I don’t know where he is yet and I don’t want to put you in any danger.”
“Call me as soon as you know.”
Zachary said a quick goodbye and hung up. He sat staring at the papers in the file for a long minute, then he navigated to Able’s number on his phone and turned to his browser to start typing in searches as he waited for it to ring through. It continued to ring. He waited for voicemail to answer, trying to compose a script in his head. Where was Able? Was he away from his phone or on another call? Or had he decided he’d had enough of Zachary and didn’t want anything else to do with him? Should he try getting through the police switchboard, explaining that it was urgent? Or just hang up and call 9-1-1? The trouble was, he didn’t yet have any information to give to 9-1-1 and they would probably just write him off as a kook.
“Able.”
Zachary looked away from his computer. He waited for the rest of Able’s recorded voicemail greeting, but it didn’t come. He had answered in person.
“Detective Able. It’s Zachary Goldman. We’ve got a problem.”
“We? You and Heather?”
“No. You and me. Heather and I met with a genealogist today to see whether we could match the baby’s partial DNA to a father using GENEmatch. Or to a family tree where we could identify suspects.”
“Okay.”
“It turns out it wasn’t a stranger. It was one of the Astors. My money is on the father.”
He Was Not There Page 18