Gone by Morning

by Michele Weinstat Miller

  Kathleen gave her lawyer’s address, and the PO typed it into her computer. “I’ll have to go back to my building, too, once the insurance company finishes its appraisal,” Kathleen said. “I’ll need to hire a general contractor and start work on repairing the building. I’d also like to go to a funeral home tomorrow on the Upper East Side.”

  “Okay. I’m sorry to hear that.” PO Daniels studied Kathleen. “Somebody close?”

  “No, no. Just an old friend.” Kathleen didn’t show how irritating it was to have this woman inquiring about personal matters. It was a dynamic familiar to Kathleen from her ten years on parole, an experience she’d hoped to never repeat.

  “Where’s the funeral home?”

  Kathleen pulled out her phone and read the address off to her.

  PO Daniels entered the information and faced Kathleen again. “Look, you can’t go on a cruise to the Bahamas, but this should be mostly easy-peasy. You just need to keep me informed. Most people in pretrial supervision don’t have ankle cuffs anymore, but you’re charged with a violent felony. You’re not eligible for the kinder, softer treatment.”

  “This is the second time I’ve been charged with a violent felony, and I’ve never done more than kill a mosquito.”

  PO Daniels leaned forward. “I get it, but don’t do anything stupid. I don’t want my kindness to look like weakness—to my boss, or the newspapers. Bottom line, don’t embarrass me.”

  Kathleen forced an obedient smile. “I promise.”

  * * *

  Two blocks from FBI headquarters, Carl spent hours at the U.S. attorney’s office reviewing his testimony for the upcoming criminal trial of a guy he’d busted two years ago. Carl had been studying a lot, and today he’d gone over his testimony with the assistant U.S. attorney who was prosecuting the case. She wouldn’t be allowed to ask leading questions in court, so he had to know the facts thoroughly. By the end of the session, he felt great. Sharp. Ready. Best of all, no sign of a slur to his words.

  Afterward, he took a call from Emily while he walked across Foley Square toward the Federal Building. He stopped near the dry fountain at the center of the triangular “square,” crisscrossed by Lafayette and Centre Streets.

  “IT found an email that we think is from Jackson Mattingly,” Emily said. “He was asking for tickets to the inauguration last year. He said he was interested in the mayor’s views on the confidentiality of adoption records.”

  “Has Sullivan taken a stance on adoptee rights?” Carl asked, excited. Mattingly’s question meant Carl had hit a bull’s-eye about the kid not being the biological child of his parents.

  “The mayor doesn’t have an official position on it. Mattingly received a form reply. You know, ‘Thank you for writing, thank you for your interest, we’ll take a look at the issue.’ Adoption confidentiality is an issue that’s been gaining national attention. States are doing away with the right to anonymity for birth parents. But it hasn’t been on the mayor’s radar.”

  When Carl returned to his office, Rick and his “temporary” partner, Meredith, a young woman only a year out of the academy, were eating sandwiches and drinking coffee. Almond-complexioned and of Syrian descent, Meredith wore a short-sleeved polo shirt that revealed cut biceps. Carl yearned to get back in shape and had returned to the gym for light workouts. It was vital to exercise to the extent he could, and he’d regained much of his old energy level. But it embarrassed him that this young agent knew him only as the soft, diminished version of himself.

  Carl sat at his desk, not knowing how he’d taken this hairpin turn into self-pity, especially after Emily’s call. He hated self-pity in others and even more so in himself.

  Meredith smiled broadly at him. “Carl. How’s it going?”

  She was always overly nice, treating him like Master Po, the blind elderly kung fu master in a TV series he’d watched reruns of during childhood summers in Puerto Rico. Carl was the elder stateman at Federal Plaza. Young agents allowed him to impart wisdom even though, deep down, they thought they knew better. Being disabled aged you in people’s minds, even if you weren’t all that disabled.

  “I was onto something about the Mattingly adoption question,” Carl said to Meredith and Rick. “He sent an email to Sullivan, asking about adoption confidentiality.”

  “That’s amazing,” Rick said. “From everything we’ve seen, adoption didn’t happen to him, but he must have believed it.”

  Meredith agreed. “A delusion.”

  “There’s an amazing amount of delusional people who write to the mayor, but Mattingly had at least some basis for wondering why he was different from his parents,” Carl said. “And the purchases we’ve traced to him add up to far more than the Mattingly household income. There’s a whole backstory we’re missing in this case.”

  Meredith gave a closed-mouth smile, signaling grudging acknowledgment. “No one in the neighborhood thought he was doing anything to make money other than working as an orderly at the hospital after he graduated high school.”

  “So somebody funded him with the Bitcoin?” Rick asked.

  “Since there’s no indication that he was a Bitcoin wonder boy, yes, somebody. The techies are no closer to figuring out who. The Fifth Avenue search was a bust. There were some chemical traces there that indicate he received deliveries of items he used for making the bombs. But the mail-drop business doesn’t keep records of when packages are delivered or who sends them. That’s part of the draw of those places. Complete privacy. They don’t want to know.”

  Carl sat down, wanting to take another look at the email Emily had sent over.

  “It sucks that he didn’t say anything, leave a note, something to explain his motive,” Rick said. “It was bad enough that we never found out Stephen Paddock’s motive in the Las Vegas shooting, but at least we knew where Paddock’s money came from.”

  “There’s a personal angle we’re missing,” Carl insisted. “And my gut tells me it relates to Mattingly’s question to the mayor. I’m going to take a step back and walk through his bio again, birth to death. I think we’re missing something important. Or someone.”

  CHAPTER

  53

  KATHLEEN WALKED INTO an opulent funeral home on Madison Avenue, her eyes needing to adjust after her sunny stroll across Central Park to get from the west to east side. She’d gotten lucky and found out from Legacy.com when and where the funeral services would be held.

  Wayne lay in an open casket at the front of the large room. A few clusters of people were seated and standing. It was early yet. There were enough pews for hundreds to attend, and Kathleen suspected the place would fill up before the memorial service tonight. Wayne’s widow, Linda, sat in the front pew, greeting visitors. Kathleen had seen her photo on her vacation rental website.

  Kathleen ducked back out of the entryway and went to the ladies’ room at the end of a gold-wallpapered hallway. She passed through a sitting room and entered a bathroom with muted lighting and marble floors, sinks, and walls. She used the facilities and returned to the restroom parlor area. Several teenagers lounged on a couch and chair on one end of the room. Kathleen didn’t think any of them were Wayne’s children. Their faces were too fresh and unworried. Their chatter quieted a notch when Kathleen entered.

  On the opposite side of the room from the girls, old-fashioned mirrored vanities lined the wall, where women could clean up their makeup after a messy cry. Kathleen sat at a vanity, took a tissue from her purse, and dabbed at her eyes. She took out her phone and fiddled with it, opening random apps but not reading.

  The girls quickly forgot she was there and resumed talking about boyfriends and gossip from the Hamptons, their summer interrupted by a return to the city for Wayne’s funeral. Kathleen watched them in the mirror between glances down at her phone.

  After a few moments, one said to the others in hushed tones, “My mother said the police found porn on his computer.”

  “Kiddy porn,” a redhead said knowingly.

  “Get
the fuck out of here,” said a short, pretty teenager with a five-hundred-dollar highlight job and bright-pink lipstick. “Uncle Wayne wasn’t into little kids.”

  An older girl smirked. Taller, with a heart-shaped face. “You never know.”

  “If he liked little girls,” the short, pretty one scoffed, “he would have tried something when we were little. He was always totally regular with me.”

  The tall one retorted, “Maybe he liked little boys.”

  In unison, all the other girls: “Oh.”

  Kathleen had heard enough. After a reasonable interval to make her exit appear unrelated to what she’d heard, she put her phone away and returned to the main room.

  * * *

  Wayne looked as if he’d died peacefully. Kathleen stood briefly in front of the casket, noting his shock of thick hair with graying sideburns. She felt detached from any emotion about his death. Theirs had been a purely business relationship, long ago, and their last encounter had been unpleasant. She hadn’t wished him dead, but she wasn’t mourning him.

  She turned away and approached the pew where Linda sat with a man and a woman. Kathleen shook her hand. “I’m Kathleen Harris, a client of your husband’s.”

  In her early fifties, Linda was Upper East Side emaciated, with a blond bob that accentuated cheekbones pressure-cooked with filler and Botox. “Thank you for coming,” she replied.

  “Of course. Wayne was a good man.”

  Not having much to say while Linda was surrounded by people, Kathleen sat in the pew behind her. Eventually, a lull in arriving visitors left a fallow space on the pew next to the widow. Kathleen slipped in beside her, speaking in soft but intense tones, her eyes focused on the casket as she spoke.

  “I know this is a difficult time, but do you mind me saying … I’m finding the situation a little hard to swallow.” Kathleen turned to Linda. “His death was very … sudden.”

  Linda took a closer look at Kathleen. “Were you one of his girlfriends?” She added, noting Kathleen’s age, “Twenty years ago? We were married for twenty-five, you know.”

  “No. Not at all. I was a client. A friend. But do you believe that crap about porn?”

  Kathleen knew she was being direct, even shocking, but her gut told her this was the way to break down the widow’s wall. There was no reason Linda would talk about anything private with a stranger. Kathleen was counting on shock value.

  As the woman assessed her, Kathleen tucked her legs farther under the bench, conscious of the bulky shackle at her ankle, her pants stretched unnaturally tight there.

  “Who are you really?” Linda asked.

  “Kathleen. You may have heard of me.” She lowered her voice. “I’m having a similar problem. A hacker cleared out my account, supposedly from my computer, and I was accused of arson as a result. Suddenly, kiddy porn shows up on Wayne’s computer. Frankly, I’d be very surprised if he were into kids. In the last two weeks, it’s been like a plague on both our houses, if you know what I mean. And it all started with strange activity on our computers.”

  “Oh, I know who you are.” Linda gave Kathleen a long look, then lowered her voice and said, “In the week before Wayne died, I received an email with photos. It wasn’t exactly shocking that Wayne would engage in sex outside our marriage, but getting those pictures—photos of him with other women, adults—was the final straw. Then detectives stopped by. There was evidence that Wayne had visited a child porn site. They traced his IP address. The police didn’t arrest him right away, but they impounded his computer, and after he died, they told me they found disgusting photos and videos … of children. They interviewed me to see if I knew anything about it.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “I agree. I told them he would never have done that. And between you and me, even if he did, he wouldn’t leave photos on his hard drive. My husband was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. I’m one hundred percent certain he had nothing to do with that.”

  “And the overdose?”

  “It had to be accidental. He was too narcissistic for suicide. He was sure everything would be straightened out in his favor, as usual. He would make sure of it. Our impending divorce barely fazed him. I moved out to our house in the Hamptons when I received the photos of him. But Wayne wasn’t one to wallow in self-pity. By all accounts, he was already scoping out younger women who would look better on his elbow when making an entrance at Mar-a-Lago.” She gave Kathleen a bitter smile. “He had a way of looking at the bright side of things.”

  Linda paused in thought before continuing. “I have no idea why I’m telling you this, but you probably know. Wayne never shied away from a good party. It wouldn’t be a huge surprise if he got high. They said he had fentanyl in his system. Everyone knows taking heroin or cocaine nowadays is like playing Russian roulette. A fentanyl overdose can happen to anyone who takes drugs. But things have been so strange.” Her eyes met Kathleen’s questioningly. “His death had to be an accident, didn’t it?”

  CHAPTER

  54

  EMILY HAD THE day off from work to attend Rusty’s graduation, a date she’d requested weeks ago. She rode the Metro North commuter train to Bedford, a mostly wealthy town in Westchester County. It wasn’t far from where her father and Jessica had lived for the last few years before he died. Her mind drifted back to those times as she watched the trees blur past the train window.

  Losses. Too many losses. Her father. The town where she’d spent happy and sad times during her teen years. Now Rusty.

  She shook her head. It wasn’t only Skye who’d become overly attached to him.

  A van driver called out from the bottom of the steps that led from the train platform to the parking lot, “Bedford State. Bedford State.” It was a regular routine, women and children arriving by train from Manhattan to visit the prison. Emily had disembarked with a group of mostly women with shopping bags and strollers.

  A van with Puppies-in-Prison etched on its side pulled up behind the taxis taking the women. Emily and several others walked over to their ride.

  The prison waiting room was a sunnier, cleaner version of the one on Rikers. Emily sat among the group of special visitors, volunteers, veterans, and their families and what looked like a local politician and his assistant. A corrections officer had told them that the Puppies-in-Prison staff would come soon to bring them to a separate wing, where the puppies and their inmate trainers lived.

  “Hello.” A woman with a high ponytail greeted all the visitors, raising her voice to be heard. “For those of you who’ve never met me in person, I’m Diana Tobias, assistant director of the program. It will be a half hour before we’ll get you cleared through security to enter. Please be patient, and we’ll be starting soon.”

  A man with puffy cheeks and an eye patch looked around, his facial muscles clenched. Emily decided to talk to him, thinking maybe he’d be Rusty’s future owner and the conversation would take his mind off whatever was bothering him. As the last hurdle in their training, Rusty and his littermates had gone with a group of veterans to restaurants and malls. Then each dog had stayed overnight in a motel room with a veteran. That had been Rusty’s final test before graduation. The dogs would leave with their new owners after the ceremony.

  “Are you a volunteer or getting a puppy?” she asked him.

  “Puppy,” he said grimly.

  “Lucky. I’m a volunteer.” Emily put out her hand to shake, noticing his frown. She realized he probably didn’t feel lucky to need a service dog. “All these dogs are amazing,” she said, clarifying.

  He shook her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “My foster dog is Rusty. Have you seen him?”

  The man’s face broke into a smile. “That’s a great dog. He came with my group to lunch. I didn’t take him overnight, but he’s a sweetheart.”

  Emily’s chest swelled with pride.

  Diana approached. “Emily, could you please come with me? We’re going to clear you first. Lucille wants to have a
word with you.”

  “Oh, is something wrong?”

  “No, no, everything’s okay, but she needs to talk to you.”

  Emily put her backpack in a plastic container and onto a conveyor belt for X-rays. She walked through the metal detector, grabbed her backpack, and followed Diana down a hallway painted in glossy beige. They left the reception building and took a path that cut through a green lawn to a low building.

  Lucille, the program director, was sitting in her office. She was tall and wiry, wearing pink plastic glasses. Emily took a seat and saw right away that it wasn’t going to be good news.

  “Emily, it’s good to see you. I wanted to meet with you because we had an incident last night.” She put up her hand to reassure her. “Rusty’s fine. But when he was with the veteran he stayed with last night, they were in a hallway going to their room, and Rusty began barking wildly at a man passing in the hall. The vet became very upset.” The director gave her a sad but judgmental look. “Rusty’s behavior was exactly the opposite of what we want the veterans to experience with their service dogs.”

  “I can’t understand it. Rusty never reacted that way to anyone. Ever.”

  “Remember the man with the fishing pole who upset him?”

  “That was only one time, and he wasn’t that bad.”

  “Well, this time it was bad.” Lucille leaned forward across her desk. “Thank you for everything you’ve done with him. But we have to release Rusty from the program. We’ll adopt him out to a good owner. He’s just not cut out for this work, or maybe he had too many transitions. Two inmates trained him. Two different weekend volunteers. Sometimes there’s nothing we can do to salvage a training that hasn’t gone smoothly. You didn’t do anything wrong. I hope you’ll keep working with us.”

  Emily swallowed hard. “I can hardly believe it.”