In the video, the man handed the phone back to Mallory and stepped out of the line. “Stop!” McKenna said.
“We got him,” her partner announced, pausing the screen.
McKenna had no idea who the man was.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Before Scanlin even opened the glass front door, the two women at the reception desk of Comfort Park exchanged a glance. In that shared look, he overheard their entire unspoken conversation.
Here he comes again.
We keep telling him—
But he doesn’t listen.
It was true. They had kept telling him. They told him Melissa didn’t remember him. They told him she really was happy here; he didn’t need to worry. They told him it was best to come with Jenna.
Easier said than done. Despite all of Jenna’s resentment of her father for putting his work before family, she—in her words—wasn’t “a morning person.” It was all she “could do” to get up in time to make it to her job as a corporate accountant. Her visits to Melissa were strictly in the early evening.
Scanlin, on the other hand, was a cop with comp time that he had to use or lose. He was also the one who’d taken care of Melissa, even after everyone said she needed to move into a “facility.” No one had believed him, but there were minutes back when she was home—sometimes over an hour—when she was almost normal, and it was always in the morning. She’d wake up before him and find him sleeping in Jenna’s room and ask whether he wanted pancakes. Didn’t she have to remember him to know that pancakes were his favorite?
“Good morning,” he said. “I’m here to see Melissa Scanlin.”
Comfort Park. He hated the name. It sounded like a combination of “comfort station” and “trailer park.” He hated the place itself when Melissa moved in. The exaggerated attempts to make it look cheerful—flowered upholstery, flowered curtains, plastic floral centerpieces in the dining area. The dated furniture. The weird smell.
He eventually realized that his discomfort with the place was all about him, not Melissa. He wanted Melissa to be the kind of woman who would hate living here. But she wasn’t. She was a woman who acted like a child due to her dementia. And much like a child, she didn’t care about design or upholstery or even the people around her. She liked arts and crafts sessions, music days, and the fact that the ladies at Comfort Park constantly brought in a rotating collection of hats for her to wear.
“Of course, Detective Scanlin. I believe she’s in the group room right now.”
The group room was a bright, open room filled with nonmatching chairs, small tables, and activity pods for drawing, puzzling, clay molding, and reading. The woman led the way to his wife, who was sitting by herself in front of a TV tray, playing solitaire. It wasn’t actually solitaire, but for some reason, the practice of placing piles of cards in seven columns and then turning over the remainder of the cards, three at once into the waste, remained a familiar pattern.
“As we talked about, Detective,” the woman whispered as they approached.
“I know. Just keep her company. No reminders. No prodding.”
“Exactly,” she said, like he was a student who had recited the alphabet correctly for the first time.
“Not to worry. I’ll act like a complete stranger.”
He couldn’t help himself. He recognized that the people who worked here—most of them, at least—truly cared about the patients. But at the end of the day, their jobs would be easier if the husbands and the parents and the siblings would just go away. Then they could run Comfort Park like a day-care center with giant toddlers and would not have to be reminded that the people in this room used to be adults. A woman like Melissa used to be a mother, a wife, and a kickass cook. Until she agreed to marry a cop, she liked to sneak a toke of doob. And though no one but Scanlin would ever know it, she was sexier than any porn star in the bedroom.
“Hi, there,” he said. “Good game?”
“Oh, yeah. I like this a lot. I always win, too.”
She never won, not even when she knew how to play.
“You know how to—you know.” She gestured to the cards.
“I used to play. I could never win, though. Too hard.”
“Doesn’t seem so hard to me.”
“You must be very good at it. My name’s Joe. I was born in Pittsburgh. I’m a police officer, and I have a daughter named Jenna.”
He’d learned that he could recite basic biographical facts without triggering a series of events ending with a staff member asking him to “come back later” with Jenna. As long as he acted like a talkative stranger, Melissa was calm, even mildly entertained. But any statements like “I’m your husband” or “We lived together for twenty-three years” or “How can you not remember?” were quickly followed by stressful pacing around the room, tears, or—the worst—accusations that he was trying to “steal” her.
“When Jenna was little,” he continued, “her appendix almost burst, and we almost didn’t know. Other kids yell and scream the second they get a tummyache, but all Jenna said was that she must have eaten too much pizza. She kept saying it for over an entire day”—twenty-four hours wouldn’t mean anything to Melissa—“and even when the pain got really bad, she didn’t scream or even moan. She said, ‘Daddy, the pizza moved to the right side of my body. I think that means I need to go to the hospital.’ ”
There was a certain irony to the Comfort Park staff’s cordial relationship with Jenna. By the time he decided to place Melissa in a home full-time, everyone they knew could barely contain their relief. Better for both your sakes. Long time coming. Had to be done.
Everyone but Jenna. If he could undergo a lobotomy to forget all of the hateful words that had spewed from his own daughter that night, he’d happily make the first cut.
“Does Jenna have a mommy?” Melissa asked.
He knew it. Mornings were always better for Melissa. He believed it was because the sleep refreshed her. If it were true that most people used only ten percent of brain capacity, maybe Melissa was able to use more when she was rested.
“Yes, she does. In fact, her name is Melissa. Isn’t that your name?”
Melissa’s brow furrowed, and he wondered whether she was about to have an episode. “That’s nice that you have a—” She waved her hand in the air, the way she did when she couldn’t conjure an appropriate word. “I used to have one. But he’s gone now.”
Melissa could not remember him, but she did seem to remember that she’d had a boyfriend at Comfort Park until he had passed away four months earlier. For her sake, he hoped she would forget. And that she’d forget the ones who were likely to come after. Melissa had long outlived the average life expectancy of patients with her diagnosis.
“It was nice talking to you, Melissa. Have a good time finishing your game.”
“I always win.”
He thanked the women on his way out, who gave him the sympathetic but impatient look they seemed to reserve for him.
He had an entire afternoon in front of him. He wasn’t good at taking a day off. No job. No family. No hobbies.
For a while, he’d thought the Hauptmann case might become his hobby, but he’d hit a wall with Vera Hadley’s notes. So maybe the nosy neighbor had heard Susan argue with a boyfriend. He still didn’t know who the guy was. And he didn’t know whether Susan was dead or alive.
The final straw had been the stunt McKenna Jordan pulled. Most people caught red-handed printing libelous information about a judge would lie low and take their lumps. But hauling out the name of her missing friend on Twitter to try to save herself? The woman would do anything for attention.
The thought of McKenna Jordan reminded him that he wanted to check in with his old friend Scott Macklin to make sure he had heard the news that she had imploded once again.
Mac’s house was pretty much as Scanlin remembered it. He was never
one to swear by his memory, but it was possible they had added the dormer windows to the second floor. Maybe the cedar fence around the side yard was new, too.
The door of the single-car attached garage was closed. The driveway was empty.
He rang the doorbell, expecting Josefina to greet him with that cheerful but busy voice. No answer. Another ding-dong. More silence.
The twenty-five-minute drive had seemed like nothing when he left Comfort Park. But twenty-five minutes times two was close to an hour. An hour of time wasted in the car.
He walked to the side of the house and peered into a window. If the television was on, he’d at least know they were on their way home. He could grab some McDonald’s and come right back.
He tried the phone number and heard it ringing inside. No answer.
He went to his car and found an old oil-change receipt in the glove box and a pen in the console. Hey, Scott. A voice from your past. Called yesterday. Popped in today. By next week, you’ll need a stalking order. Give me a ring when you have a chance to catch up. He scrawled his name and cell number and made his way to the porch to drop off the note.
There was no logical place to put it. No screen door to hold it in place. The bottom of the door was weather-sealed, so there was no slipping the note beneath. The mailbox had a lock on it, thanks to identity thieves.
He tried the door. If it were unlocked, he’d leave the note in the front hallway and get on his way.
It opened.
The house smelled like crispy bacon. Scanlin couldn’t think of a better smell.
He bent down to place the note on the hardwood floor in the foyer. That was when he saw the bare feet protruding from the living room doorway.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
McKenna knew her suspicions were right the second the transit agent saw her. He recognized her. And her return trip to the video monitoring center for the subway system had him very nervous.
“Hi, Frank. Remember me? I was here last weekend looking for camera footage of that kid who fell on the tracks at Times Square.”
“Yeah, sure. Sorry about the glitch. People want low taxes. Want to keep the fares down. When crap starts breaking, they act like they’re all surprised.”
“Back up and running again?”
“Last I heard. All set to go.”
“Good. So if someone gives me a bribe on the platform down there today, you’ll catch the whole thing on film?”
“Umm . . . yeah, sure, I guess. Something I can help you with?”
“I mention the possibility of a bribe being caught on film, Frank, because that’s basically what happened to you.”
“I think you better leave, lady. I’ve got work to do, and you’re obviously under a mistaken—”
“Don’t. Just don’t, okay, Frank? That man who paid you to wipe out the footage from that day? He was an undercover reporter.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“He’s a bit of a lowlife but fancies himself an investigative journalist. An amateur Geraldo Rivera type. He doesn’t actually have the ethics of a legitimate reporter. See, most reporters—if they’re going to do a story about corruption among low-level city employees, people like you—they actually need to know about the corruption first. Not Hank the Tank.” No clue where the nickname came from, but she was rolling with it. “That’s what he calls himself. Because he’s sort of a tool. Anyway, Frank, reporters like me are pretty sick of tools like Hank running around making up stories. Not to mention that this time around, he fucked me by wiping out the subway footage I needed for my Superwoman article.”
“What kind of story is he making up?”
“Well, he didn’t really make it up, did he? But he did entrap you. You were just sitting here minding your own business until he came around making an offer no reasonable person could refuse. Like you said, people want low taxes. They want cheap fares. That leaves hardworking guys like you holding the bag, working more hours for less pay. He played you, Frank. He took advantage of you, paid you off, and now he’s going to use you as the centerpiece of a story—like you’re the big problem in this city.”
“But that’s— He can’t. I’ll get fired.”
“And that’s why I’m here, Frank. I’ve always suspected this hack of pulling the strings on his stories. This time I figured it out. He’s already bragging that he got a city worker—on tape!—to wipe out security footage from one of the biggest terrorist targets in the world. Well, I put two and two together, and I want to reverse the sting on him. I’ll show that he set you up. That he overcame your resistance by upping his price over and over until you relented. That’s what happened, right?”
“If it happened, then yeah. But, um, does my name have to be used?”
“Nope, not at all, Frank. If everything goes to plan, my story—no names—will be the end of Hank, and that will kill his story about you.”
“Okay, let’s do that, then. He entrapped me. Just like you said. He came in saying that he was married to the lady in the tape. That all she was trying to do was help a person, but after the fact, she realized reporters would make a big deal out of it and everything, and she just wasn’t interested. I told him there was nothing I could do, but like you said, he kept pestering me. I figured she was a hero and all. What was the harm in protecting her privacy?”
“Okay, and to be clear, Frank, this is the guy we’re talking about, right?”
She showed him a still photograph from the parking garage’s security camera. In her head, she had started thinking of the man as the Cleaner.
“Yeah, that’s the guy, all right. Can’t believe he played me like that.”
“And he gave you”—she took a guess—“five thousand dollars?”
“No. It was only a grand. He’s telling people five?”
Frank was cheaper than she would have expected. Someone needed to explain to him the value of a union job these days.
She was no closer to identifying the Cleaner, but she was now sure of two things: he was thorough, and he did not want anyone to know Susan Hauptmann was alive.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Twenty-two minutes.
Scanlin knew, because after calling 911, he waited by himself on Scott Macklin’s porch for what seemed like an eternity before checking his phone log to see how long it had been since he’d made the call. Then he heard the sirens. Then he saw the ambulance turn the corner.
Twenty-two minutes for someone to show up to the scene of a dead cop.
Scanlin had seen a point-blank head shot before. He wished he hadn’t, but he had. He’d even seen a self-inflicted one—another cop, in fact. That image might have been what saved him when things got really bad with Melissa. He couldn’t stand the thought of someone finding him like that.
But that was how he’d found Scott Macklin. His friend had been sitting in the recliner. The bloodstains on the chair and the wall behind it made that much clear. His arms had probably fallen to his lap. The gun was in his right hand. The movement of his head backward had pulled the weight of his body forward in the chair. He eventually slid onto the floor, where Scanlin discovered him.
By the time Josefina pulled up in front of the house, the ambulance had been joined by a fire engine and two marked police cars. She recognized Scanlin standing at the curb and greeted him with a smile. She was wearing what looked like a yoga outfit. “Oh my goodness. You weren’t kidding when you said you wanted to see Scott. What’s all the commotion?”
“It’s Scott. I’m so sorry, Josefina.”
She dropped to her knees when he told her.
Scanlin stayed with her through the entire process. The moving of the body. The questions from responding officers and detectives. The call to Tommy who now wanted to be called Thomas. The clearing of the house for entry, even as Josefina realized there was no way she was going to spend th
e night there.
They wound up at a Denny’s, where they waited for a church friend whom she was going to stay with.
“I don’t know why he’d do this.” She used her fork to push the scrambled eggs of her Grand Slam to the edges of the plate. “I didn’t even know he still had a gun. He seemed so happy about Tommy going to college. Maybe it was because he was out of the house? Maybe the idea of just the two of us—”
“Aw, don’t start talking like that. Mac was crazy about you.” Scanlin had no way of knowing whether that was still true. Hadn’t the most bitter, unhappy couples been wild about each other at some point? But he couldn’t imagine Mac falling out of love with the woman who had brought him to life back then. Scanlin could think of only one reason Macklin would have been so desperate, and he wasn’t sure how to broach the subject with Josefina.
“I know Scott tried to protect you from the details, but I assume you know something about the shooting he was involved in before he took early retirement.”
“I was a new immigrant, Joe, but I wasn’t illiterate. Of course I knew the basic facts. That boy reached for a gun, and Scott had to shoot back. But the boy was black, and Scott was a white cop, and so—That’s how this country still sees things. Maybe it will always be that way.”
“The DA’s office took it to a grand jury. The lead prosecutor was all set to steer the grand jury to uphold the shooting as justified, but then a younger prosecutor claimed that Scott had used a drop gun. That’s what it’s called when a police officer takes an extra gun and plants it—”
“Yes, I knew all of this. It’s ancient history. They cleared Scott, but all that digging around in his past exposed other problems. People he arrested from years ago came out of the woodwork. He eventually cut a deal to leave the department and keep his retirement.”
If You Were Here: A Novel of Suspense Page 19