If You Were Here

by Alafair Burke

  So far the words had come out exactly as she’d planned them. The right delivery. The right tone. Just a friend thinking out loud. If Getty blew her off because he was too busy, she wouldn’t know what to think. If he became defensive or angry, she’d assume he was hiding something.

  Instead of offering either of the anticipated responses, Getty surprised her. He played out the thought experiment. And damn, he was smart.

  “Let me start by saying that if you ever try to make it sound like I believe any of this shit, I will drop-kick your ass back before the day I met you. But if we’re really playing what-if, I’d say it was all about the pier.”

  “Because Mac thought Marcus was planning a grab?”

  “No, because piers are where we import and export. I don’t know all the details, but Macklin was on the docks that night for some kind of inspection program. If he was on the take, Marcus Jones and the hooker could have seen illegal cargo coming in. Drugs. Maybe people.”

  The theory was coming together even as she articulated it. “Mac heads over to make sure they’re not a problem, but they’re not having it. He panics, pulls his weapon . . .”

  “Total fiction, if you ask me,” Getty said. “But yeah, it’s possible.”

  Depending on the role Macklin played in the cargo inspection, he could have been the one person standing in the way between seized cargo and a free pass. She remembered Macklin asking her about immigration law. The situation was complicated, he had said. She searched her memory for the specifics. Josefina had entered the country lawfully but failed to return to Mexico when her visa expired. Even worse, she had her sister bring Thomas into the country illegally when he was five years old. Macklin was pretty sure that the marriage resolved any of Josefina’s immigration problems, but he was worried about Thomas getting deported. He’d said he needed money for an immigration lawyer.

  Thomas, now starting college at Hofstra, obviously remained in the country. Maybe Mac had found a way to fight for his stepson.

  “But once James Low stepped forward, we stopped considering the possibilities,” she said. “Do you know what ever happened to him?”

  “Been a long time.”

  McKenna knew. She’d done the research. Killed in a gang shooting two years earlier in Atlanta. “He got picked up in a bar brawl a year after he testified before the Marcus Jones grand jury.”

  “Sure, I know about that. I handled it, in fact. But since then? No clue.”

  So much for catching Getty in a lie. “I looked at the police report,” she said. “It was an easy felony. Plus, he had priors. Why’d you plead it to a misdemeanor?”

  “Because I have a bias against cases that are cluster fucks. There were thugs on both sides. Complete pandemonium. All the witnesses were drunk, and none of them wanted to testify. The so-called victim had a record six feet long, including multiple assaults. His lawyer—Bernadette Connor, you know her?”

  McKenna nodded. Telegenic and straight-talking, Connor was her law firm’s go-to person for high-profile criminal trials. Nine years ago, she was a midlevel associate at the firm but already had a reputation as a hard charger in the courtroom.

  “Bernadette came to me early and made it clear the case wasn’t winnable. I’d dealt with him on the Marcus Jones thing. He had a clean sheet during the year in between, and I thought he might not be a lost cause. We pleaded him out to the misdemeanor and moved on.”

  Getty’s explanation was plausible, but it was raising questions she hadn’t considered. “Did you ever wonder how a kid like James Low had enough money to hire a private lawyer? Or to get VIP bottle service in a club?”

  “Not really. Club night could have been a hookup by a doorman, for all I know. And a firm like Bernadette’s does a ton of pro bono.”

  Or James Low had been paid off to say he gave the gun to Marcus Jones.

  “Speaking of pleas,” McKenna said, “I saw Gretchen Hauptmann this week.”

  His face was blank before the name registered. “Sure, Susan’s sister. How’s she doing?”

  “She said you helped her out of a federal drug indictment. I didn’t realize you knew her.”

  “I didn’t. I knew her sister. You’re the one who introduced us, remember?”

  “Sure, that one night. I didn’t know you stayed in touch.”

  For the first time since they’d sat down, he looked offended. “Where’s this coming from?”

  “I just found out that Susan was pregnant when she disappeared. And I assumed from your helping Gretchen that you and Susan must have . . . connected after I introduced you. In light of the timing, I thought it was kind of weird that you never said anything to the police when she went missing.”

  “Look, not that I owe you an explanation, but I saw her a few times after we met at the bar. It obviously wasn’t going anywhere—she had a lot going on in her life. She was looking at another deployment. By the time she disappeared, we weren’t together that way. I helped her sister because she asked me to review the case and it seemed like the right thing to do.”

  Susan had never mentioned anything about deployment to McKenna. And she’d just seen Susan’s file. Scanlin had checked with the military: Susan’s service was done; she was free and clear. Was Getty lying? Or had Susan made up the deployment to break things off with him? Or had Scanlin made yet another mistake?

  “Did Susan tell you she was pregnant?” she asked.

  “No. Obviously not. I would have told the police.”

  If Getty knew more than he was letting on, she hadn’t caught him. “So, you need to get back to the courthouse?”

  “After the big interrogation, that’s all you have to say?”

  “I figured you were busy, that’s all. I really appreciate the time, Will.”

  She could tell he wanted to say something, but he pushed the tray in her direction, shook his head, and left without a word. He let the bakery door slam behind him. So much for her last remaining ADA friend.

  The meeting hadn’t been a complete bust. She had been thinking so much about the gun next to Marcus Jones’s body that she’d completely glossed over the reason Scott Macklin had been at the pier in the first place. She remembered the bits and pieces of the argument that Susan’s neighbor had overheard. “Smack” and “important.” Smack was Mac. Important? Could have been “import.” If Macklin had been involved in a smuggling operation at the piers, that would explain how Marcus Jones and Pamela Morris had become a threat.

  McKenna found the business card she was looking for in her purse.

  “Agent Mercado, this is McKenna Jordan. I want to propose a deal.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  I want to propose a deal. McKenna thought the line was pretty good bait. The promise of a swap. A quid pro quo. She thought it would draw the FBI agent in.

  Once again, Mercado wasn’t like other FBI agents. She hung up.

  At least she picked up the phone on the second try. McKenna forewent the cool pitch, trying an earnest approach. She actually said, “Cross my heart, you’ll want to hear this.” Combined with the desperate tone, it probably amounted to groveling. But it worked. She was back at the Federal Building and had Mercado’s attention.

  “I have information for you.”

  “Good. Let’s hear it.”

  “Because I’m a lawyer,” McKenna said, “I know I’m not obligated to turn over information out of the goodness of my heart.”

  “I can subpoena you to testify in front of the grand jury.”

  “You can. But then I’ll move to quash that subpoena, and you won’t be able to tell a judge what you even want to ask me. Even if you do haul me before the grand jury, once again, you don’t know what to ask me.”

  “So, just like some scumbag codefendant invoking the Fifth Amendment, you want a deal.”

  “Call me what you want, Mercado, but I’ve seen the
look of an investigator who’s hot on the trail, with every piece falling into place, and it’s only a matter of time before the entire thing comes together. I’ve also seen the opposite, where every road is a dead end, every promising tip a brick wall. You look like you’ve been hitting dead ends and brick walls.”

  Mercado held her gaze for a few seconds, then gave her a grudging smile. “What do you want? ”

  “The morning after the bombing in Brentwood, you asked me about four names. I know that two of them are already in custody. I assume the other two were cohorts?”

  “Again, not sure why I’d tell you anything. I’ve heard about your brand of journalism. Not real interested.”

  “Fine. Just listen. I know that Greg Larson is the de facto leader of the P3s. That leaves one other name on your list—Pamela Morris. It sounded like you didn’t know where Larson and Morris were or whether they died in the bombing. I have information about Pamela Morris. And I mean rock-solid information.”

  “Is she with Larson?”

  Mercado’s question meant she had not yet received confirmation that Larson or Morris had died in the explosion.

  “I don’t know, but—” McKenna stopped when Mercado got up to leave the conference room. “Hold on, hear me out. I know who she is, and her real name’s not Pamela Morris. And because I know who she is, I know a context to her work with the P3s that, frankly, you’re clueless about.”

  Finally, McKenna had gotten her interest. Jamie Mercado was not used to being called clueless.

  “What do you need from me?”

  “I need your word that you’ll do me a favor.”

  Another smile, this one condescending. “You’ve got to understand something. My word? In my world? It actually means something. I can’t give you my word when you ask for something that amorphous.”

  “Fine. You want specifics? Part one—I show you a photograph of the woman you’ve been looking for, the woman you know as Pamela Morris. You take that to the two P3s you have in custody. They’ll confirm it’s her. That should earn me enough goodwill for part two: you promise to answer two questions for me—one having to do with a cargo inspection ten years ago, and one about a search of my office this week. Since I trust that you’re a person of her word, once you promise me that, I’ll fill in the connections. Is that specific enough for you?”

  “Jesus, Jordan, you’re a piece of work. Just give me the picture already.”

  McKenna handed her a photograph of Susan. “See if they recognize her. But tell them the picture’s ten years old.”

  Mercado took a quick glance and dropped the print on the table. “What are you trying to pull? This is that missing woman you’ve been Tweeting about—Susan Hopman or whatever.”

  “Hauptmann. We had a deal, Agent Mercado. Show the two prisoners the picture. You’ll get a match. And then I’ll explain. I promise. My word means something, too.”

  “One of them lawyered up, but I still have the younger one hanging on by a thread. We’re about to go in for another round with her, in fact.”

  “It’ll be worth your time. I promise.”

  Ten minutes later, Mercado confirmed it: the woman who’d been living as Pamela Morris was Susan Hauptmann.

  “Enough with all the game playing,” Mercado said. “What’s your angle?”

  McKenna told Mercado everything with the linear precision of a lawyer’s narrative. Susan’s disappearance. The pregnancy. The elderly neighbor hearing an argument with repeated mentions of “smack” (Mac) and “important” (import). Susan’s reappearance on the subway platform, wearing a backpack tying her to the P3s, and everything that had happened since: McKenna losing her job; Scott Macklin’s supposed suicide a day after Susan visited his house; the Cleaner who wiped out the subway footage of Susan; the shooting at Grand Central Station; her suspicions about Will Getty.

  “Look,” Mercado said, “I’m sorry about your husband, but you’ve mistaken me for someone who cares about your friend’s disappearance or whatever the fuck happened ten years ago between a dead kid and a former—and now dead—cop.”

  “Very sensitive, Agent.”

  “It’s not my job to be sensitive. You came here with a promise of information. Tell me how this jumble of data helps me get to the bottom of a nationwide ecoterrorism organization.”

  “Weren’t you listening?”

  “Yes, and patiently, I might add.”

  McKenna resisted the temptation to use a condescending tone herself. “I didn’t see it at first, either. But there’s only one explanation for Susan Hauptmann living in that house in Brentwood. She was strictly law-and-order. A hard-core, chain-of-command, work-within-the-system type. The complete antithesis of a group like the P3s.”

  “So why was she there?”

  “Because for ten years, she has somehow managed to support herself. I know Susan. She’s industrious. She could take her military experience and talk her way into a decade of work with private security firms without revealing her true identity—the kind of firm that might not ask too many questions if an operative proved she was talented enough. The kind of outfit that might engage in the domestic surveillance you’re not allowed to conduct as an agent of the government.”

  She saw a flicker of recognition in Mercado’s face, part excitement, part frustration that she hadn’t seen it earlier.

  “She was hired to be there,” Mercado said.

  “I’d bet everything on it. No one’s more motivated to bring down a gang of activists than the corporations left paying the bills from their handiwork. And those corporations can afford to hire the best. Once you know who her clients were, you can subpoena them for information. It would be illegal surveillance if it originated with the FBI, but if a private party gathered it—”

  Mercado finished the thought. “It’s fair game. We’re regulated, but they’re not. They can pose as sympathizers. Snoop in e-mails. Bug phones.”

  “They’ll have names, locations, dates, target information. The starting point is finding Susan Hauptmann, which is where my questions come in. On October 16, 2003, NYPD Officer Scott Macklin was working on some kind of container inspection at the West Harlem piers. I’m trying to figure out the specifics. If we can tie Will Getty to it, we might have enough evidence for a wiretap. Catch his connection to Susan.”

  Without a word, Mercado left the conference room. She returned twenty minutes later. “Remember how, after 9/11, we figured out that however high we ramped up security at airports, we still had these gaping holes in our border because of cargo inspection? The newly formed Homeland Security Department cranked up the search requirements but didn’t have the systems to keep pace. Containers were getting so backed up at the Port Authority that they literally ran out of storage space. Fancy imported food was going bad. Just a big backlog.”

  “The NYPD was filling in?”

  “To streamline cargo inspection, a federal-state cooperative Homeland Security task force created a preapproval process for shippers and receivers.” When Mercado described the program, McKenna felt a tug at the threads of her long-term memory. “Frequent importers and exporters could get prescreened to receive cargo with less rigorous inspection. Shipments could skip the usual receiving ports for spot-checking at local piers, and then the approved receivers would conduct a full search on their own and certify that they didn’t receive any unauthorized items. Participants were high-volume, high-credibility entities.”

  Mercado was blabbing along, living up to her end of the bargain, when McKenna realized that Patrick once told her that the museum was authorized to participate in the preapproved cargo program. She remembered him working nights, inspecting art shipments.

  She tried to retain control over her own thoughts. She tried to stop the images of Patrick with Susan. Without McKenna. Talking about McKenna. Enjoying the thrill of getting away with it.

  She needed to focus
. “Is there any way to find out which preapproved shippers were receiving cargo that night? Maybe we can find a connection to Susan.”

  “I’ll have to reach out to Homeland Security, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”

  “One more thing, Agent. I don’t want to push my luck, but why’d you bother searching my office? What did you think you were going to find there?”

  Mercado looked amused. “I only wish I had the time to care so much about you, Jordan. If someone searched your office, it sure as hell wasn’t the Bureau.”

  McKenna found Bob Vance on his way to Vic’s Bagels. Her former editor was Rain Man–like in his consistency. Vic’s was known for its multitudinous toppings. Signature menu items included the Tokyo Tel Aviv Express with wasabi and edamame, or the Vermonter with bacon, maple syrup, and cinnamon. You could make your own spread, with mix-ins as diverse as pesto, corn, or potato chips.

  Bob Vance? Plain bagel, butter, lox, and tomatoes, untoasted, every day around two-thirty.

  On instinct, he smiled when he spotted McKenna, but then he shook his head as reality set in. “Too soon, my dear. Get a lawyer to talk to the magazine’s lawyers. Maybe they’ll work something out.”

  “I’m not here to beg for my job, Bob. The FBI agent who searched my office. Was he this man?” She showed him a photograph of the Cleaner. His picture had not yet been released to the press after the shooting.

  “Yeah, that’s the one. You’re not stalking an FBI agent, are you? I wouldn’t mess around with that.”

  Yesterday she would have savored telling him he’d been duped. That his magazine’s lawyers were idiots who didn’t know enough about criminal law to check out their copy of the warrant, if they’d even been served with one. She would have used the infiltration as proof that someone was trying to discredit her, and she would have insisted on getting her job back.