Harm's Reach

by Alex Barclay

  She was surprised that Laura had told Conor the day she came to take him away. She was surprised at someone as vulnerable as Laura deciding to run. Laura Flynn was braver than she thought. And Conor, more volatile, more dangerous, and more in love. Didn’t men want no ties? Didn’t sixteen-year-old boys? Why was sex not enough? It was bizarre.

  Conor’s phone call to her the night before Laura died: ‘Laura knows something about Robert. She’s on her way here. I have to meet her tomorrow. She wants me to leave with her. But I won’t. She can’t make me. Now’s our chance, Ingrid. She said she was in Chicago, talking to some guy who could get us into Canada and back to Ireland. But now’s our chance. To start a new life. If Robert’s been doing something wrong, if he’s, like, going to go to prison for fraud or something … we can be together …’

  That was another thing that turned her stomach. ‘Start a new life’ with Conor Gorman. How ridiculous. What did he think was going to happen? She would do a spread in Harper’s announcing her love for the just-turned-seventeen-years-old nephew of her dead immigrant housekeeper?

  She laughed out loud. And at the idea of Robert Prince and fraud. People assume so much about the wealthy. There was no fraud in Robert Prince’s world. There was no taking – only giving; money and love and second chances.

  She loved to hear Laura’s stories about the Irish underworld in New York. Particularly the one about Janey Mac – Nicky McMullen – from the dive bar in Yonkers who had fled to Chicago and became Janey Mach III. She had given Laura a new purse when she got pregnant. It had a GPS tag in the lining, expertly stitched. She was carrying her baby, after all. It was not difficult to trace Laura from a throwaway phone. It was not difficult to hire someone to follow her in Chicago, and to pay Janey Mac off – he didn’t give a shit about Frankie Gorman or his delinquent son.

  Unfortunately, Nicky McMullen got cold feet when he saw Laura’s bump. Chickenshit.

  But for Conor to get rid of her problem was the biggest revelation, though Laura had brought some of it on herself; she had told him too much. He had thought Laura was lying when she said that the Princes were trying for a baby. Conor had believed that all those appointments the Princes were going to was because they were divorcing. Laura must have wondered how Conor could have had a clue what was going on in the Princes’ marriage and why he seemed to care so much. And when his aunt mentioned his father, told him where the deadbeat was, was forced to admit that she had known all along, he had grabbed the gun and told the woman who had saved his life that she was messing up his life. And the impulse, the fear, the love, the hormones, the pain, the everything that had been poured into this one handsome boy exploded. Loser. The panic, the tears, when he called her from his creepy little friend’s cell phone …

  At least Conor had proved coachable: rip the tag from the purse, make Robert, anyone, look bad, make me look good. Create just enough suspicion to send people off in different directions. They would be a team; she and Conor would create a little tornado that would throw dust in everyone’s eyes, blind them just a little until a better suspect emerged. Whoever … Robert … the creepy little friend … anyone.

  Everyone had secrets. And even the most harmless ones could look sinister through a prism of suspicion.

  She thought of the women in the tabloids who had their multi-millionaire husbands by their balls and bank accounts. Incongruous couples, with public declarations of love so effusive they couldn’t possibly be real. Relationships that bloomed in this microclimate of extreme wealth were not about feelings held in hearts, but secrets held over heads. She knew how it worked. When you are invited into the inner circle, you look very carefully around you, you observe. And you look for hiding places, for what lies twisted in silken sheets or behind lifted eyes, what words pass collagen lips, or are bitten back by ultra-white veneers.

  With these secrets, I thee wed.

  For better and better, for richer and richer.

  In her case, the secrets she had uncovered came along after the wedding. Robert had fallen so clearly, so desperately in love she didn’t need secrets for diamonds and golden bands to slide up her ring finger. Secrets were her eternity ring.

  Ingrid heard a noise at the front door. Light on her feet, she walked out into the long polished hallway. Her suitcases were at the end by the door: a set of five, olive green, edged in brown leather with accents of gold.

  Now, there was banging at the door, hammering. Ingrid froze. The door burst open. She felt a rush of adrenaline.

  This is not how it ends. This is not how it ends. This is not how it ends.

  She backed into the kitchen, then turned, set to run for the French doors, but she could make out two dark figures standing there. Ingrid was briefly blindsided by her reflection in the glass.

  She knew what she looked like to others. She knew what her husband looked like.

  A Swedish proverb came to mind: Alla känner apan, men apan känner ingen.

  Everyone knows the monkey, but the monkey knows no one.

  The back door burst open. She wasn’t expecting women. It was the agent. And the detective.

  ‘Ingrid Prince,’ said the agent. ‘You are under arrest for Solicitation to Commit Murder in the First Degree.’

  Ingrid Prince closed her eyes.

  I am innocent. I am innocent. I am innocent.

  64

  Janine and Ren walked into the interview room. Ingrid Prince sat at the table, washed-out, beautiful, erect, even after waiting for three hours. Her hands, chained and cuffed, were on the table in front of her. Ren blinked and got a flash of the sunny Hamptons beach, the casual beauty of the expectant mother. She refocused. Ingrid was staring at her. Ren could feel herself go cold.

  How did I not see this before?

  Was I blinded by beauty … maternity … wealth?

  I have never been blinded by beauty or maternity or wealth; we are all equal.

  Ren blinked. Ingrid did not.

  But I was blinded.

  Ren thought of the orange bottle of mood stabilizers in her bathroom cabinet.

  Not blinded … numbed.

  Ren was suddenly acutely aware of Janine beside her. They turned to each other. A slight frown came and went on Janine’s face, as if she had been reading Ren’s mind.

  Unlike the previous interview with Ingrid Prince, there was a lawyer seated beside Ingrid; she no longer needed to pretend that she had nothing to hide. The veneer had cracked.

  The lawyer looked to be in her late fifties, a plain, heavy, jowly woman, no doubt as groomed as she could be without caving in to society’s expectations of how a woman should present herself: neat bun, tidy but thick eyebrows, smooth skin, no facial hair, but no makeup, no adornments, nothing to draw the attention away from the fierce set of her face, the just-try-me eyes. Ingrid Prince’s message was clear: there is no beauty in this, this is serious. My serious, non-frivolous, law-loving lawyer believes in me – shouldn’t you?

  Ingrid Prince, your downfall will be your belief that the surface can make things right.

  Janine talked everyone through the formalities. Ingrid refused to answer every question put to her. Her lawyer was dazzling.

  As if we expected anything less.

  Ren and Janine stood up. ‘We’re going to take a short break.’

  Ren and Janine returned to the interview room fifteen minutes later. Ren set down the records to Jesse Coombes’ cell phone. The phone number of the rental in Golden was highlighted.

  Janine began. ‘We have confirmed that Conor Gorman made calls from Jesse Coombes’ cell phone to you at the following times: Saturday, May 12th, nine p.m. … after Laura Flynn called Conor Gorman to arrange to meet him; Monday, May 14th, one p.m. … after Conor Gorman shot the only person who ever truly loved him, your “dear friend”, Laura Flynn.’

  ‘Here, also,’ said Ren, ‘are the admission records for The Darned Heart Ranch: Conor Gorman ran away on January 8th – the night he was picked up for fighting at the Ace-Hi Tavern
in Golden. It appears from these records that he didn’t show up at the ranch until the following morning. Romantic night?’

  Baby-making night?

  Not a flicker.

  ‘And here,’ said Janine, ‘is the sworn testimony of a man called Nicky McMullen, aka Janey Mac. We discovered that Laura Flynn reached out to Frankie Gorman in Stateville, sent him a letter we now realize was a coded way of getting Frankie to send Janey Mac to meet her at her hotel. You found this out too. And Janey Mac says you paid him twenty-five thousand dollars to kill Laura Flynn before she got back to Colorado. But when he met poor Laura, who looked so like her sister, Saoirse, who Janey Mac once loved so dearly, he was a little spooked. He didn’t do it. But he followed her. And he couldn’t stop thinking that she was pregnant and that he shouldn’t be doing this. But he kept going. And … well, when it came to the crunch, he just didn’t have the heart. He fired a few shots, pretended to you that she sped away before he had a chance to fire again. Detective Hooks here works with a marvelous lab in the UK that got his print from the shell casing that flew into Laura’s car.’

  Ingrid almost smirked.

  Goosebumps.

  Ren could sense Janine stiffen.

  ‘This just in,’ said Ren, ‘an account from one of your neighbors of an altercation outside your apartment in SoHo between you and a former model by the name of Sunny Soto. We spoke with Sunny Soto. You were weeks away from signing a joint cosmetics campaign back in the Nineties. It was the first time a company had chosen two models to feature in each shot. That contract was worth many, many millions. But, Sunny Soto got pregnant. Yes, she was only nineteen, but she was very happy about the pregnancy, the father was her high-school boyfriend, she loved him, he’s now her husband. But you, apparently, were not happy. You wouldn’t have been hired …’

  Nothing.

  ‘You spiked her food with an abortion drug,’ said Ren. ‘She lost her baby. She found out years later when Sandro Cera, the photographer – in a drugged-up stupor – told her. And you retaliated, selling stories about him and his drug use to destroy him. You promised you’d do the same to her, so she kept quiet. I was wondering why Laura Flynn was so desperate to run when she did. Sunny Soto showed up on your doorstep that week. She had read the gossip piece that you were pregnant and it pushed her over the edge; you who hated children, thought she was pathetic for ever wanting a child, that she was ruining her life, but when it suited you with your multi-millionaire husband, you want one. She showed up roaring and screaming and you fought. What you didn’t know was that Laura Flynn ran down the steps after Sunny Soto when you went back inside. She heard the story. She told Sunny Soto to find the courage to report it, but she didn’t … until now. Laura Flynn knew what you were capable of, didn’t she? She knew you would stop at nothing. Laura had said no to the abortion already, but she realized you would never give up until you got your own way.’

  ‘What do you think of Robert Prince?’ said Ingrid.

  What the fuck?

  ‘My husband,’ said Ingrid, drawing the word out long enough to turn it into something grotesque. Her lawyer laid her hand on Ingrid’s forearm. Ingrid brushed her away.

  ‘Do you think he’s a catch?’ said Ingrid. ‘Do you?’

  Ren and Janine stayed silent.

  ‘I bet you do!’ said Ingrid. ‘I bet you do!’

  Still, Ren and Janine remained silent.

  ‘Robert Prince, handsome millionaire, great catch, lucky me, lucky all the beautiful women,’ said Ingrid. She leaned forward in her seat. ‘He’s a monster!’

  ‘You tried to convince us of that before,’ said Ren. ‘We know that your husband is not a monster. He is a kind and a charitable man.’ I was wrong, wrong, wrong.

  ‘He’s a monster!’ said Ingrid, her voice rising into a shriek. ‘He is! Do you want to know who his father is? A horrible man, a creep, a liar, a coward, a—’

  ‘Desmond Lamb was a war hero,’ said Ren.

  Ingrid laughed, mocking and cruel. ‘I got the badge, you idiots! I got the army badge. Don’t you get it? Desmond Lamb was gone in 1957, the entire year Robert was conceived. It’s impossible Desmond Lamb was his father.’

  Ren’s stomach tightened.

  ‘You get it now!’ said Ingrid. ‘You get it now.’ Her face was contorted, making her more ugly than anyone would ever have believed possible. ‘Walter Prince is his father! I got a DNA test, plucked a hair from Robert’s head in the throes of passion! Know what I heard from the lab? “Evidence of consanguinity.”’ She leaned in again, her eyes wild. ‘His grandfather fucked his own daughter and out came Robert Prince! What kind of catch is he? The kind you throw back in the ocean. The kind that is weak and damaged and obscene. Why else would I want the baby dead? I was expecting genetic gold.’

  Ingrid Prince closed her eyes.

  Click flash click flash click flash.

  I am a victim. I am a victim. I am a victim.

  65

  Ren and Janine sat in the Sheriff’s Office canteen.

  ‘I need a shower after that,’ said Ren, ‘a scalding hot one. That was like being in a crypt. How could I not have seen that? Or felt it? It’s freaking me out.’

  ‘I didn’t see it either,’ said Janine. ‘But it’s not freaking me out. She’s a talented woman. It’s her job to transform, she’s been doing it all her life. Her job is to conjure emotions and have whoever’s watching her believe them. I’m guessing that tears, grief and trauma are the most dramatic, therefore the easiest to mimic. Feigning love may be a lot harder. However freaked out you might be, can you imagine how Robert Prince feels?’

  ‘Poor man,’ said Ren. ‘I’m presuming that he knows his own dark secret, that that’s why he had the vasectomy in the first place.’

  ‘Incest is one step beyond even tabloid acceptance,’ said Janine.

  ‘He barely wanted to go public with the pregnancy,’ said Ren. ‘Now, there’s all this …’ She paused. ‘You know, I’m not sure if “child of two killer parents” has a better genetic ring to it …’

  ‘Yikes,’ said Janine. She studied Ren. ‘You look miserable.’

  ‘I am,’ said Ren. ‘I am.’

  ‘We got her in the end,’ said Janine.

  ‘I’m not a fan of ends,’ said Ren. ‘I like starts and middles.’

  ‘Don’t you like happy endings?’ said Janine. ‘And wishing them on strange men at breakfast.’

  They laughed loud.

  ‘When will his victims show up, I wonder …’ said Ren.

  ‘Can you imagine?’ said Janine.

  ‘I’ve been trying not to,’ said Ren. ‘So … Viggi Leinster and Angelo Marianelli – solved.’

  ‘And not girl scout Peggy Beck,’ said Janine.

  ‘Ah – not yet,’ said Ren. ‘Maybe all the attention drawn to the area might help. Everything happens for a reason. I presume you still get to follow through if anything shows up …’

  ‘Yes,’ said Janine.

  ‘We haven’t caught our Shark Bait Bandits,’ said Ren. ‘Though I do not give a shit about them.’

  ‘Not all crimes are created equal,’ said Janine.

  ‘How are you holding up about the unit?’ said Ren. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m OK,’ said Janine. ‘Tomorrow is another day.’

  ‘Tomorrow Never Dies,’ said Ren.

  ‘If Tomorrow Comes,’ said Janine.

  ‘Oh my God,’ said Ren. ‘I remember that! The mini-series. It was Sidney Sheldon.’

  ‘Starring – wait for it – Liam Neeson …’

  ‘No way!’ said Ren. ‘I do not remember that. I will have to re-evaluate that.’

  ‘It’s on YouTube,’ said Janine. ‘It’s sad that I know that.’

  ‘Well, we can reminisce further … if tomorrow comes …’ said Ren.

  ‘That’s appalling,’ said Janine. She went to YouTube, called up the video.

  Ren laughed as they watched. ‘The music! I remember the music. DNN dnn dnn dnn DNN dnn dn
n dnn DNN. I will get sucked in,’ she said. ‘I have to stop this.’

  ‘We’re delaying the inevitable.’

  ‘To the duped husband …’

  Robert Prince looked ghostly, with lines that looked deeper, eyes that looked darker. The top two buttons on his crumpled shirt were open and, for a man of his poise, it was all wrong.

  Ren and Janine walked into the room.

  ‘Can I get you a coffee, Mr Prince?’ said Janine.

  ‘No,’ said Robert. ‘No, thanks. I’ve already had too much … when, really, all I want to do is sleep.’

  You’re reaching out. You have no one.

  ‘Your wife is refusing to speak with us,’ said Ren.

  ‘It’s not in her interest to,’ said Robert. ‘And we all know now that Ingrid Frank does nothing that is not in her interest.’

  ‘We’re very sorry,’ said Ren. For focusing on you. ‘For your loss.’ Losses. Multiple losses.

  Janine nodded her support.

  ‘Thank you, both,’ said Robert. ‘I appreciate it. Because the rest of the world is going to think “He still has his millions, what has he got to worry about?” As if you can only be wealthy if you trade your humanity for it.’

  ‘It’s been a very difficult time for you,’ said Ren.

  ‘And will continue to be,’ said Robert. ‘At least with the land and the charity, I can do something. I can focus on that. What’s your favorite charity, Agent Bryce, Detective Hooks?’

  Oh, no. Please don’t do this to me. I thought you were a killer.

  ‘I’m serious,’ said Robert. He smiled. ‘Please, allow me to make a small donation. I would never have … I … you saved me.’

  I suspected you. I suspected you. I thought you were the controlling sociopath and your beautiful wife was the victim. Jesus Christ. You owe me nothing. I owe you.

  ‘People will benefit from this,’ said Robert. ‘I know you had to look into me as a suspect. I understand that … if that’s what’s worrying you.’