I wait.
“Beginning with Edie Parker. Her mother is still alive. She lives in Basking Ridge, New Jersey. She claims to have not seen or heard from her daughter since that night. She has also refused to talk to the media, but she will talk to you.”
“Why me?”
“Because I told her it was your painting found with Ry Strauss. I may have also hinted that you know more about the Jane Street Six’s whereabouts than reported.”
“Tsk, tsk, Kabir.”
“Yeah, you’re a bad influence on me, Boss. Let’s move now to Billy Rowan, okay?”
I nod.
“It seems that Billy and Edie were getting pretty serious, more so than people realized. Billy Rowan’s father is still alive, the mother died twelve years ago. But here’s the kicker: Ten years ago, Rowan’s father retired and moved from Holyoke, Massachusetts, to an assisted living facility in Bernardsville, New Jersey.”
I consider that. “Bernardsville is right next to Basking Ridge.”
“Yes.”
“So Mrs. Parker and Mr. Rowan now live within miles of one another.”
“One point two miles, to be exact.”
“That can’t be a coincidence,” I say.
“I don’t think it is either,” Kabir says. “Think they’re doing the nasty?”
“The nasty?”
“The nasty, the ugly, knocking boots, boning, playing hide—”
“Yes,” I say, “thank you for the thesaurus-like clarification.”
“Of course, they both gotta be near nineties.” Kabir makes a face as though he’s gotten a whiff of Eurotrash cologne. He quickly shakes it off. “Anyway, I couldn’t get William Rowan—that’s his name—on the phone, but Mrs. Parker said that both she and Rowan’s father would meet you at his assisted living facility tomorrow at one p.m., if you’re up for it.”
“I’m up for it. Anything else?”
“On Parker and Rowan? No.”
He lifts the Parker and Rowan folders and places them in the same stack as the Strauss and Davies ones. That leaves only two.
“And if I can go out of order, I have nothing new on Lionel Underwood either.”
He adds Underwood’s folder to the pile. That leaves only one folder.
Arlo Sugarman.
I glance at Kabir. He is smiling.
“Paydirt,” Kabir says.
“Go on.”
“As you know, for years there has been zero sign of Arlo Sugarman—nothing since that FBI raid that killed an agent. But of course, you got new information from Lake Davies.”
“That he was in Tulsa,” I say.
“Exactly. More to the point, Lake told you that Arlo Sugarman was posing as a student at Oral Roberts University. You didn’t tell PT about that, did you?”
I shake my head.
“Right, based on when Lake was still on the run, I figured that she and Ry would have had to have crossed paths with Arlo sometime between 1973 and 1975. To be on the safe side, I spread that timeline out until 1977 on the off chance that Arlo disguised himself as a freshman and stayed there for four years.”
“And?”
“And then I started digging. Oral Roberts University has a pretty impressive alumni page. I started there.” He tilts his head. “Did you know that Kathie Lee Gifford graduated from Oral Roberts?”
I say nothing.
“Anyway, I used a photoshop app to change photographs of Arlo Sugarman. In all the famous ones, he has long hair and a huge beard—kinda like me when you think about it, right?”
“As rain.”
“Come to think of it, that would have been a good disguise.”
“What would have been?”
“A turban. Except you guys are terrible at tying them. Anyway, using the software, I made Arlo look clean-shaven with short hair. I mean, Oral Roberts University. It isn’t exactly a spot for campus radicals, right? Then I tried some alumni contacts from that era. Class officers. People like that. The groups are pretty active on Facebook. I got a fair amount of responses. Most were useless, but two people thought the image looked like a guy named Ralph.”
“Ralph what?”
“That’s the thing. They didn’t know. It was all very vague, which, I thought, was what you’d want if you were kind of hiding out. Still, I had a first name. I had the years he may have been on campus. So my next step was, I had to get hold of the yearbooks from those years.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“E-Yearbook. It’s a website. They have full scans of every page from tons of yearbooks. High schools and colleges. You can see them online if you pay a fee. If you pay a slightly higher fee, they’ll send you a scan of your entire yearbook.”
Kabir is trying my patience. “So you looked through them for the name Ralph?”
“Right, looked through the headshots. There were several Ralphs, but none that looked like Arlo Sugarman.”
“He was probably smart enough to skip picture day.”
“Probably, yeah. Am I taking too long telling you this?”
“I think it would be best to pick up the pace.”
“Okay, cutting to the chase: This may sound a little complicated, but when I ran a facial recognition search through the yearbook scan pages, I came up with this.”
Kabir opens Arlo Sugarman’s folder and pulls out a black-and-white image.
“This is page 138 of the Oral Roberts University yearbook from 1974.”
He hands me the page. The heading reads “Theater Moments.” There are five photographs spread across two pages. One features a woman wearing angel wings. One features what looks like the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. One features four men dressed in medieval garb playing musical instruments and singing.
The second from the right, playing a mandolin, is Arlo Sugarman.
“Whoa,” I say out loud.
In the old image, Sugarman wears black-framed glasses, which he hadn’t in any previous photographs I had seen. He is clean-shaven. The curly locks are cut shorter. You wouldn’t recognize him unless you were looking closely, which, it seems, the facial recognition software had been.
“Long story short, I located the student who directed that show. His name is Fran Shovlin. He works at a megachurch in Houston. Nice guy. He remembers Ralph as Ralph Lewis. What’s interesting is, there was a Ralph Lewis in that class, but he was sick and didn’t seem to attend any classes. So I think Arlo just used his name.”
“Makes sense.”
“According to Shovlin, the only thing he really remembers about Ralph was that he dated a woman named Elena. I looked her up. She’s Elena Randolph now. She’s divorced and owns a beauty salon in Rochester, New York. I called her, but as soon as I mentioned the name Ralph Lewis, she hung up on me. I’ve called back, but she refuses to talk.”
“Interesting,” I say. “And I assume you’ve done every kind of search under the name Ralph Lewis?”
Kabir nods. “Nothing pops up.”
Not surprising. Sugarman probably changed identities several times over the years. There was a chance that Ralph Lewis was never an identity, that he just used that name knowing the confusion with the real Ralph Lewis would keep him off the radar. It would be hard to pull off that stunt today—colleges keep track of students, have greater security concerns—but back in the seventies, anyone could have probably walked onto a campus and sat in on classes and not been questioned.
Kabir and I agree on a schedule. I will visit Parker’s mother and Rowan’s father at the Crestmont Assisted Living Village tomorrow at one p.m. It will be easiest to drive there—the ride would only be about ninety minutes—and then if I decide it would help, I can grab a private plane at nearby Morristown Airport and fly to Rochester to confront Elena Randolph. Kabir will take care of all the details.
“You know what to do with Elena Randolph,” I say.
“On it,” Kabir says, rising from the chair.
“Do you want to stay for dinner?” I ask.<
br />
“Nah. Got a hot date.”
“How hot?” I ask.
“I like her, man.”
“You can keep the copter for the night,” I say.
“Huh?”
“Keep the copter. Take her to my beach club on Fishers Island. I can arrange a table on the ocean.”
Kabir does not reply. He instead points to the files stacked on the table. “Should I leave these here for you?”
“Yes.”
“Thanks for the generous offer, Boss. But I think I’ll pass.”
I wait a beat. Then I say, “May I inquire why?”
“If I do something this grand on our fourth date,” Kabir replies with a shrug, “what will I do for the fifth?”
“Wise,” I say.
My mobile vibrates. When I see the caller is Angelica Wyatt, I feel the spike of fear and hit the green button with dizzying speed. Before I can skip my customary “Articulate,” Angelica says, “Ema is fine.”
Amazing how well Angelica knows me, especially considering how little she knows me. And yes, this is Angelica Wyatt. The Angelica Wyatt, the movie star.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“Ema has been asking for you.”
Ema is a high school senior. She is also my biological daughter.
“I brought her to the hospital to see you,” Angelica tells me.
This displeases me. “You shouldn’t have.” I glare at Kabir, but I’m still talking to Ema’s mother. “How did she even know I was—?”
“You were supposed to have breakfast with her that morning,” Angelica replies.
“Oh,” I say. “Right.”
“She’s worried, Win.”
I don’t say anything. I don’t like this.
“When can she see you?” Angelica asks.
“Would tomorrow work?”
“Your place?” Angelica asks. “Dinner?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll drop her off.”
“You can come too, if you’d like.”
“That’s not how we do this, Win.”
Angelica is right, of course. We agree on a time. I hang up and continue to glare at Kabir.
“Ema called looking for you,” Kabir explains, “and I know you wouldn’t want me to lie to her.”
I frown because he is correct, and I don’t like it. “How much does she know?”
“Just that you were hospitalized. I told her you’d be okay. She didn’t believe me. She wanted to stay in your room.”
I am not sure how to react to this. I am often left adrift and unsure when it comes to Ema. This new relationship, if that is what we want to call it, often leaves me teetering and unbalanced.
Which reminds me.
“Trey Lyons,” I say.
“What about him?”
“Sadie said he went home to convalesce.”
“In western Pennsylvania,” Kabir says. “To some ranch or something.”
“I want eyes on him, twenty-four seven.”
“Got it.”
“Two men. I want to know where he is at all times. Run a background check too.”
Sometime later, with Kabir on the copter and heading back to Manhattan for his hot albeit serious date, I am back at the practice green, working on my putting, trying to clear my head, when I spot Cousin Patricia coming over the hill. She strides toward me with her shoulders back, her face set on grim, and one does not need to be a body-language expert to see that something is amiss.
Because I’m quick on the uptake, I say, “Something amiss?”
“You let me be a cowardly chickenshit,” she tells me.
“Redundant,” I say.
“What?”
“A chickenshit by definition is cowardly. Either call yourself a coward or a chickenshit. But a cowardly chickenshit?”
She crosses her arms. “Really, Win?”
I consider telling her to love me for all my faults, but I refrain.
Patricia picks up a club—a nine iron for those keeping track—and starts pacing. “So after we talked, I go back to the shelter where we help abused teens. That’s what I do, Win. You know this, right?”
There is a bit of a rant in her voice. I don’t reply.
“I mean, lately, it feels as though all I’m doing is executive bullshit—raising funds—but at the end of the day it is about those teens that we rescue because they have no one and that’s Abeona’s mission. We help kids in trouble. You get that, right?”
“I do, yes.”
“And you know what started me down that path?”
“Yes,” I say, “I’ve read your brochure.”
She is still pacing, but the word “brochure” makes her pull up. “What?”
“You went through a severe and brutal ordeal. It made you recognize the need.”
“Yes.”
“Despite all the horrors you experienced, you felt lucky. You had the resources and support to put your tragedy behind you. Now your mission is to provide the same for those less fortunate.”
“Yes,” Patricia says again.
I spread my hands as if to say, Well then.
“So what was that crap about reading the brochure?”
“I don’t think that’s the full story,” I say.
“Meaning?”
“It was more than your recognizing a need.”
“Like?”
“Like survivor’s guilt,” I say. “You escaped from that hut. The other girls did not.”
She does not reply. I continue.
“You believe now that you owe those girls something. Simply put, those girls haunt you because you had the audacity to live. That’s the part that really drives you, Patricia. It’s not so much that you had resources and others do not. It’s that you survived, and irrational as it is, you blame yourself for that.”
Patricia frowns at me. “That Duke psychology major didn’t go to waste.”
I wait.
“Do you know why I’m upset right now?” she asks.
“I can make an assumption.”
“Go ahead.”
“After we talked, you went back to the Abeona Shelter. Rather than hang upstairs in your executive office, you rolled up your sleeves and went into the field because you felt the need to connect or get to your roots or some similar banality. Perhaps you took the van out on rescue missions. Perhaps you counseled a young girl who was recently assaulted. At some point, you raised your head and took a good look around at this rather impressive shelter you, Patricia, built. And then you got misty-eyed and marveled to yourself something akin to: ‘These girls are all so brave, while I’m not going to the FBI because I’m a redundantly cowardly chickenshit.’”
Patricia almost laughs at that. “Not bad.”
“Am I close?”
“Close enough. I have to come forward, Win. You get that, right?”
“It doesn’t matter what I get. I’m here to support you.”
“Good, but you’re wrong about one thing,” she adds.
“Oh, do tell.”
“Those girls who never came home?” she says. “They don’t haunt me. They just expect me to do right by them.”
CHAPTER 24
We see no reason to wait. I call PT and tell him that Patricia is ready to talk.
“Glad you chose to call us,” PT says.
“Why’s that?”
“Because we were coming to you. See you in an hour.”
He hangs up, but I didn’t like his tone. An hour later—PT is nothing if not prompt—an FBI helicopter lands at Lockwood. We exchange pleasantries before convening in the parlor, where the Vermeer’s empty frame looms larger than normal. PT has brought a young agent he introduces as Special Agent Max. Special Agent Max wears hip neon-blue-framed glasses. I don’t know whether Max is his first name or last, but I don’t care either.
PT and Max sit on the couch. Patricia takes our grandfather’s old chair. I stand and coolly lean against the fireplace mantel like Sinatra against a lamppost. The word
you are looking for is “debonair.”
PT cuts right to it. “Win told me that the suitcase we found at the murder scene belonged to you. Is that correct?”
Patricia says, “Yes.”
“You know about the murder, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Did you know the victim, Ry Strauss?”
“No.”
“Never met him?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“Ever been to his apartment at the Beresford?”
“No, of course not.”
“Ever been to the Beresford at all?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Don’t think so?”
“I guess at some point I may have been there for a function of some kind.”
“A function?”
“A fundraiser, a party, some kind of social event.”
“So you were at the Beresford for something like that?”
I don’t like this.
“No,” Patricia says, seeing it too, “I don’t think so. I don’t remember. But it’s possible. I’ve attended fundraisers in many apartment buildings on the Upper West Side, but I don’t specifically recall one in the Beresford.”
PT nods as though he’s totally okay with that answer. “Where were you on April fifth?”
That is the day of the murder. I do not like the way this is going—more of a tat-tat-tat interrogation than a cooperative coming forward. I decide to break up the rhythm. “What exactly is going on here?” I ask.
PT knows what I’m doing, so he ignores my question. “Ms. Lockwood?”
“Call me Patricia.”
“Patricia, where were you April fifth?”
“It’s no secret,” she says.
“I didn’t say it was a secret. I asked where you were.”
I say, “Stop.”
PT now turns to me. “I’m asking questions, Win.”
“It’s okay,” Patricia says. “It’s public knowledge. I was at Cipriani that night for a fundraiser.”
I confess that this information surprises me.
“The Cipriani in midtown?” PT asks.
“On Forty-Second Street. By Grand Central station.”
“So you were in New York City?”
“If Grand Central station and Forty-Second Street are still considered New York City,” Patricia replies with a hint of irritation, “then the answer is yes.”
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