by Sharon Potts
She checked for the woman in the other photos, but couldn’t find her. Then, she noticed something else—a man who didn’t look like someone who went to carnivals. He was in another photo as well. He was large and muscled, with tattoo sleeves covering both arms. Aubrey enlarged the photo. The tattoos appeared to be of intertwining snakes. The man had a scraggly reddish beard, shaved head, and he wore dark glasses. He was probably in his thirties. And while he wasn’t looking at Ethan, it was suspicious that he was in two photos taken at two different places in the carnival. He could have been one of the carnival workers the FBI was checking out, but she’d make sure Smolleck knew about him.
She replied to his message:
Don’t recognize anyone, but check out woman in Photo 6—dark hair, sunglasses and mole above lip—who’s looking in Ethan’s direction. Also bulky, bearded man with tattoo sleeves in Photos 1 and 5. Carny worker?
She hesitated. Smolleck was doing his job, even being responsive to her suggestions. She needed to stop reacting to him as if he were the enemy.
She added: Thanks for forwarding photos, pressed “Send,” and leaned back in her desk chair.
Her eyes settled on her snow globes. Two children pulling a sled, a mother and daughter in a forest of snow-covered fir trees, a family having a snowball fight.
When Aubrey had pressed her father for answers at the time-share, he’d angrily pointed a finger at Mama. She recognized the bullying technique. Her father was hiding something. Why else would he have become so defensive when she’d asked him about politics and Columbia?
Yet, she couldn’t imagine the man who had held her close as he guided her down a ski trail, when she’d been too scared to go by herself, being involved with the kidnapping of his own grandson.
Unless someone else was calling the shots.
And the woman, who had beguiled him from day one, was a likely candidate.
Star Matin.
When Aubrey had first met her, Star had introduced herself, pronouncing her surname like the French word for “morning,” and Aubrey had thought it was spelled “Matanne.” She’d since learned otherwise.
She entered “Star Matin” in Google search and had only a few hits, all having to do with Star’s jewelry business. She followed each link and finally found a write-up in a small magazine called Southern Comfort. The article was an old one, from ten years ago, before Star had become involved with Aubrey’s father.
Star Matin was born a southern belle in Charleston. To please her parents, she wore frilly dresses, learned how to curtsy, and didn’t drink too much at her debutante ball, when what she really wanted to be was a tomboy. She studied art at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia, then worked in advertising and marketing before going off on her own and creating her own line of stunning jewelry, The Star Collection, which can be found right here in Buckhead, where for the last ten years, Star has had her own boutique in the upscale shopping mall of Peachtree Shoppes. As Star says, “I always thought I wanted to be a tomboy, but the truth is I love being a girl!”
A puff piece without much content, but it was consistent with what Aubrey knew. She looked for images and found a couple of photos of Star at various events with Aubrey’s father. She returned to her original search and hunted for older links, but there was nothing.
It was time to check into her father’s background. Maybe she’d find some answers to her growing list of questions.
Why hadn’t he taken the polygraph? Why was Smolleck asking about his political views and his time at Columbia University? And had her father known Jonathan in the past?
She would start with what she knew and build out from there.
Her dad had been an undergraduate at Columbia from 1967 to 1971.
Her mother had attended Barnard, its sister school, from 1969 to 1973.
Aubrey went online to see whether she could access either of their college yearbooks, but they were password-protected, so she tried a different tack. She recalled her parents had met in ’69, so she googled “Columbia University 1969” to get a sense of what was happening at that time.
Articles with references to student protests and strikes popped up. She already knew a little about this period—the unpopular Vietnam War, opposition to the draft, racial tensions, the emergence of the hippie culture, and flamboyant drug use.
She clicked on a link to a YouTube video—a documentary made in 1969 of a student strike and university takeover. She watched it, taken aback by the anger of the fist-shaking students that had been captured on the choppy black-and-white film.
Rebellion and activism were completely alien to her experiences as an undergraduate at Brown, and now in graduate school. Her college years had been about getting good grades and studying under respected professors. But these Columbia students, led by a group called SDS, or Students for a Democratic Society, as the narrator explained, were at war against the university’s administration. They claimed that Columbia University was hooked into serving big corporations that were financing the war machine. Companies whose CEOs were either on Columbia’s board of trustees or providing substantial endowments to the university, like Lockheed, General Dynamics, CBS, and Baer Business Machines.
Aubrey paused the documentary. She hadn’t realized there had been a link between Prudence’s family business and Columbia, but it wasn’t a surprise. BBM was one of the most powerful corporations in the country. They probably had their fingers in lots of pies, even back in 1969.
She did a search of Columbia’s board of trustees and found that Emmet Baer, founder of BBM, had been on the board from 1965 through 1970.
Kevin once mentioned that Prudence had wanted him and Kim to name their son Emmet after her grandfather, but for once Kim had sided with Kevin, and they had agreed on Ethan. But Aubrey couldn’t imagine what Emmet Baer being on Columbia’s board might have to do with Ethan’s kidnapping.
She returned to the documentary and continued watching the jerky footage of student protestors capturing five university buildings, then barricading themselves in against the police.
Her parents had both been at Columbia during this radical period, but Aubrey had told Smolleck her parents were not political people. Her father’s reaction tonight suggested she may have been mistaken. She searched for her mother and father in the documentary, trying to match the long-haired students to what she imagined her parents might have looked like then, but if they had been there that day, Aubrey couldn’t identify them.
She googled “Larry or Lawrence Lynd” and “Columbia University,” which returned a number of references in recent bios of him being a graduate of Columbia. She narrowed the search, including “1969” and “1970.” Nothing came up.
If her father had been involved with any student activism, he hadn’t been very visible.
Then she googled “Diana Hartfeld” and “Diana Lynd,” since her mother had married her sophomore year, and first “Columbia,” then “Barnard.”
Nothing on her mother, either.
She searched for “Larry Lynd and Jonathan Woodward,” but came up with no hits on the two of them together.
Then something else crossed her mind. Smolleck had brought up the accident her mother had been injured in, as though that were somehow connected to Ethan’s disappearance.
She googled “Accident, Columbia University, 1969.”
No specific hits, but on WikiCU, the wiki site for Columbia University, there was a list of notable incidents in 1969. Protests, students seizing university buildings, the elimination of ROTC from campus, and more references to the SDS organization. She clicked on WikiCU’s link to 1970 and skimmed the entries, stopping on one that caught her eye:
Revolutionary student group Stormdrain accidentally blows up its headquarters in brownstone.
Aubrey followed a link to the article. A black-and-white photo taken at night showed several police standing in front of a row of brick townhouses. Barricades and rubble lined the street, but most noteworthy was the black, gaping spac
e between two stately brick brownstones. The building between them had been leveled.
The caption below the photo read: SITE OF MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS BROWNSTONE THAT BLEW UP APRIL 1970, KILLING FOUR, INCLUDING THREE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY STUDENTS.
Could this be the accident her mother was in?
Do they hide things from you? Smolleck had asked.
Aubrey hadn’t responded, disturbed by the answer that came to mind.
Yes, they did hide things.
But she was as much at fault. She had never asked her parents about their past, sensing the topic was off-limits. She had grown up trying not to rock the boat because she knew her parents’ marriage wasn’t entirely stable. Then, eight years ago, after Dad left and the boat had capsized, she had felt an even greater need to protect her mother by not wading into treacherous waters.
But those days were over. Aubrey had questions only Mama could answer, and she would ask them. Even if they finally caused the boat to sink.
CHAPTER 18
The wooden floorboard outside her bedroom door groaned.
“Mama?” Aubrey called. “Is that you?”
Her mother opened the door and poked her head in. She was ghostly white.
“What’s wrong?” Aubrey started to rise. “Is Ethan—?”
Her mother held up her hand. “No news.” She came into the room, then sat on the bed.
“Something happened. You’re upset.” Aubrey’s mind jumped to the ultimatum in the note. Her mother couldn’t have . . . “Where’s Jonathan?”
Mama looked at her, as though confused, then her expression cleared. “Jonathan wanted to come back here with me, but I told him not to.” Her eyes were reassuring. “He’s fine, sweetheart. We’re both fine.”
Aubrey released a breath. “Okay. Good.”
“What about you?” Her mother pointed at the laptop. “What have you been doing?”
“Research.”
“On what?”
Aubrey watched her mother for a reaction as she answered her. “The revolutionary movement when you and Dad were students at Columbia.”
Her mother’s eyes widened. “Why do you care about that?”
“Because Smolleck seems to care. And because Dad acts like you know about something important that happened back then.”
“Your father?”
“I went to see him tonight. I wanted to ask him some questions about the past, but he turned everything back around at you.”
Mama gripped the bedspread. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about, sweetheart,” she said, in an unnaturally calm voice. “Turn what back on me?”
What was she hiding? “Mama. Were you involved with the brownstone explosion in 1970?”
Her mother looked away.
Oh no, Aubrey thought. Please, no.
“I was outside the brownstone when it exploded,” her mother said, meeting her eye. “That’s how I got injured. The blast ruptured my eardrum, and I was hit by flying debris.”
“But were you involved?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you have something to do with the explosion?”
“It was an accident,” her mother said. “A bomb went off by accident.”
“I know. I read that.”
“I wasn’t responsible for that explosion.” Her mother’s voice was loud, but maybe she was upset that Aubrey would consider such a thing.
“Do you think the explosion could be connected to Ethan’s kidnapping?”
“I don’t see how.”
Aubrey looked up at the snow globes on the shelf above her desk. She had finally shaken up the flakes, but they had settled, and everything was just as before, with Aubrey no closer to finding the truth.
“Come here, sweetheart.” Mama patted the bed.
It was the comforting voice her mother had used when Aubrey had been upset or frustrated as a child. And like a child, Aubrey went to sit beside her. She let her mother hug her, even though she felt as if she had compromised herself. She had acquiesced too easily by not pressing her mother further, but she had spent most of her life placating Mama—a pattern that was difficult to break.
“It’s almost ten,” Aubrey said, gently pulling away. “They’re probably replaying Kevin and Kim’s press conference from earlier. We should watch it.” She turned on the TV in the armoire opposite her bed. A commercial was on. Two women jogging around a lake, laughing.
“Remember when we used to watch The Gilmore Girls together?” Mama asked. “We would lie here on your bed. I miss those days.”
“Me, too.” Aubrey had been thinking about the show herself. The special bond between the mother and daughter. She and Mama. They were both under tremendous stress. For now, it was important to trust and support her mother, not confront her.
The female newscaster’s voice came on, explaining how six-year-old Ethan Lynd had disappeared from a neighborhood carnival on Sunday, at around three p.m.
Crawling across the bottom of the screen was a number to call with tips or sightings. One of the photos Mama had taken at the carnival appeared on the screen—Ethan with his big grin and dimples, golden curls flying around him.
Her mother’s breath snagged. “Oh, God. Just like Jimmy Ryce.”
“No. Not like Jimmy Ryce,” Aubrey said. “We’re going to get Ethan back safe and sound.”
The newscaster’s voice continued. “Ethan’s parents held a news conference earlier today, begging for help in finding their son.”
The camera cut to footage of Kevin and Kim.
Aubrey’s chest felt as though it would cave in as she watched her brother and his wife. Kevin seemed to be holding Kim up as she stared ahead blankly. A large poster of Ethan was on one side of them, Prudence and Ernest Simmer on the other.
And then, anger overtook sadness.
She and her mother should have been there for Kevin. How dare the Simmers try to widen the chasm between them at a time like this?
Kevin spoke, struggling with each word as though he were cutting teeth. His brown hair was uncombed and his cheeks unshaven, but what got Aubrey were his eyes—dark, solemn eyes that held so much pain.
And she hadn’t been there to support him.
Kevin and Kim stepped back from the microphones, and Prudence and Ernest came forward, first hugging their daughter and son-in-law, then turning toward the cameras. Everything about Prudence was colorless, even her lips. Her blonde bob touched the shoulders of her beige silk blouse. Prudence Baer Simmer looked nothing like a haughty heiress, but rather a desperate grandmother. Her pale eyes searched the cameras, a disoriented expression on her face. Ernest loomed over her, bald head shining in the glare of camera lights, shoulders hunched, one arm supporting his wife. These people weren’t faking it.
Aubrey had considered the possibility of the Simmers being behind Ethan’s kidnapping and the threatening note, but how could they be so grief stricken if they were responsible?
Prudence leaned into the microphone. “We are offering a reward of one million dollars for information leading to the safe return of our grandson, Ethan Lynd.”
“A million dollars,” her mother whispered.
“If you have seen Ethan or know any of the people who took our little boy, please call this number.” Prudence held up a poster with the number and recited it. It was also the number that crawled across the bottom of the screen.
Prudence and Ernest spoke for another minute about Ethan, and then, to Aubrey and apparently the Simmers’ surprise, Kim pushed in front of them. Her blonde hair was in disarray, her eyes red and puffy. “He’s my baby,” she said, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Please, if you have my little boy . . .” She struggled to get the words out.
Kevin stepped up beside her and held her as he stared at the camera. “Ethan, are you watching? We love you, little guy. We’re going to get you home.” And then his face crumpled.
Mama shook her head. “He’ll never forgive me.”
Aubrey didn’t know how
to comfort her. Her mother was probably right. There’d be no forgiveness from Kevin now, no matter the outcome.
The newscaster was speaking, and “Exclusive interview” flashed on the screen. “We have an exclusive interview with a family that can shed some light on this horrible tragedy. Are you there, Roberto?”
“Yes,” he said. “Thank you, Lourdes. I’m talking to Rhonda and Chris Cole, the parents of Ryan Cole, a little boy who died three years ago under the care of Dr. Diana Lynd, Ethan’s paternal grandmother.”
“For God’s sake,” Aubrey said. “I can’t believe this.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Cole,” the reporter continued, “can you tell us about your experience with Ethan’s grandmother, Dr. Diana Lynd?”
The Coles glanced at each other. They were dressed formally—the husband in a suit, the wife in a high-necked black dress.
Rhonda spoke. Her listless brown hair hung loose to her shoulders, and she looked at her hands, not at the camera. “When we heard what happened, we felt we had to come forth and tell the world what we knew.”
“What is that, Mrs. Cole?” the reporter prompted.
“That woman—the little boy’s grandmother—well, she’s a doctor. She was supposed to take care of our child, but she said there wasn’t nothing wrong with him. And then our Ryan, he died.”
“Do you think that has something to do with Ethan’s disappearance?” the reporter asked.
“What kind of doctor says a child is fine and sends him home to die?” Rhonda Cole wiped her eyes, but there was a telltale leak of contempt as one lip curled up.
The Coles could have left the note, Aubrey realized. Maybe the red tricycle on the greeting card was a reference to their child.
“Dr. Lynd was cleared of any liability in the malpractice lawsuit you brought against her, isn’t that right?” the reporter asked.
“Yes, but she shouldn’t have been,” Chris Cole said.
“She’s irresponsible,” Rhonda Cole said. “She killed our son and showed no remorse, and now her grandson is missing. Why wasn’t she at the press conference if she has nothing to hide? Why haven’t the police taken her into custody?”