And yet the account rings true. The bloody nose explains Hannah’s blood on Matthew’s shirt, but not why police didn’t see stains on Marjorie and Peter’s bedroom carpet, as she claims there would have been. I guess she could have cleaned it, thrown away the torn nightgown, and promised Peter not to tell the police what he had done. The details add up—sort of.
I have come to like Marjorie as much as someone can like the person who has essentially ruined their life. As much as I wish I didn’t, I have also come to doubt her. Yet I see how excited you are.
This chapter is among your best, chilling and poignant and explanatory. It’s as reasonable as any excuse for why an eight-year-old might have been sent into the night alone, and Peter’s not here to defend himself. With everything else so tenuous, I ought to be thankful. I should keep my mouth shut and stop digging. I should let this go to press. Tim convinced the publishers to extend you a courtesy in light of Matthew’s death, now that you’ve agreed to deliver the manuscript as promised, and I should let you do exactly that. Finish this book, and turn it in by the new deadline.
We should cash the check, hire a lawyer, and move on.
Still I can’t help feeling this is all going to end badly. If you publish a lie as the truth, Peter being dead won’t matter. You won’t have to worry only about being sued for libel. You’ll be a sham, a cautionary meme.
You’ll be ruined.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
I CAN’T LET THAT HAPPEN. There is nothing worse for my potential career than being tied to a fraud. I place several calls to officers and clerks, with whom I’ve worked over the years, reviewing your books for procedural errors. While Deon is my most intimate law enforcement contact, he isn’t my only one.
I now owe more favors than I’ll probably ever have the opportunity to repay, but court filings, charging documents, coroner’s reports, and police reports begin rolling in. Of particular interest is Gregory Phillip King, whose name has come up more than once. He feels like a linchpin. A critical loose thread in our narrative, and I’m determined to get to the bottom of his story.
Reviewing statements following Hannah’s disappearance, I’m surprise to find that Deon wasn’t the only one who questioned him. Twice Vern hauled King into the station because, like you, he took an interest in neighborhood gossip. How Deon doesn’t know this is beyond me, but these are details either Deon isn’t privy to or he’d rather I not be. It wouldn’t be the first thing he’s lied to me about.
Vern’s point of contention was the number of reports placing King at the Harmans’ residence, particularly on the day of Hannah’s disappearance. At first, King is evasive, doing his best to deflect suspicion, but by the second interview Vern had secured surveillance footage placing King where he claimed not to have been. Having sat across from Vern more times than I’d like, I understand the intimidation Gregory Phillip King might’ve felt when he admitted, under duress, to the rumored sexual relationship between he and Marjorie Harman.
Yes, she, too, is a cheater.
This isn’t behavior one expects from an abuse victim terrified of her husband, and counts as another blow to Marjorie’s credibility. I wonder how intimate their relationship might have been, because, between your one-night stands and my emotional connection to Deon, I’m well-versed in the range of infidelity. Had Marjorie fallen in love? Might Gregory King have factored into her decision to leave Peter—and potentially Hannah—behind?
A new picture emerges of a mother such as Diane Downs, who shot her three children, or Marybeth Tinning, who killed nine of hers over fourteen years, or Susan Smith, who drowned her sons fastened into the back seat of her car. Marjorie might have disappeared her daughter simply to free herself from the burden of parenthood.
This is only a working theory, of course, and the flaw in my logic is that Gregory Phillip King is dead. Marjorie could have abandoned Hannah for him, but the end result doesn’t support the assumption.
An hour passes as I skim tens of pages of statements and scan photographs relating to Hannah’s abduction and Gregory Phillip King’s murder. One in particular, the crime scene close-up of King’s head wound, renders me speechless. There are teeth missing and a pulpy hole where the lower part of a face should be. Even in death, King’s lifeless eyes are wide with surprise. Blood spatter covers every nearby surface, and gray matter—yes, visible pieces of brain—cling to the mantel ledge.
I imagine Peter in the aftermath, no closer to recovering Hannah, and wonder if this gruesome, personal attack wasn’t about more than his missing daughter.
I read Peter’s initial statements to police, his assertion that King got what he deserved, though nowhere does he mention the alleged affair.
Among Peter’s case file, which contains an honest-if-not-graphic confession, is a supplemental report from the Euclid Police Department, just outside of Cleveland, on the missing Ohioan Gregory Phillip King had been questioned about three years prior to relocating to New York. There are interrogations and court transcripts, as well as a summary of events, which in itself is staggering enough for me to dig further. King’s Ohio file wasn’t easy to come by, but is worth answering for, should anyone realize I have it.
I skim the transcripts, focusing more on King’s responses than the detective’s questions. Most of what Gregory Phillip King has to say relates not to the missing girl—whom, he asserts early on, likely isn’t missing—but to the termination of a recent relationship he had been having with the girl’s mentally unstable mother; an embittered ex intending to frame him.
I’m in no position to judge, but twice King was burned by scorned women—this case in Ohio, and the neighbor in New York whose story was eventually relayed to you. Apparently, poor partner choices aren’t exclusive to women. The couple had been dating for only six months when Gregory called things off, claiming not to be ready for marriage or children, and this woman was pushing for both.
Some of us take longer than others to come around to monogamy. Others never do.
Police investigated King for months, ruining his reputation, costing him his job, getting him evicted from his apartment, and ultimately forcing the relocation that tragically ended here. Sometimes all it takes is an investigation to destroy someone.
We know this better than most. We also know something about life-inspired art, which is why I see a correlation as I read the jilted ex’s initial police statement that I wish, for our sakes, I didn’t.
According to her, on the night of her daughter’s disappearance, Gregory King assaulted her, an act interrupted by the girl, who was sent next door for help. Only the girl never made it to the neighbor’s house.
King admits to a fight that night, but his version claims this is when he ended things.
A neighbor spotted his car fleeing, possibly with a child in the passenger seat, supporting the woman’s story that King intercepted her daughter and sped off with her.
King admits to peeling out of the driveway, to speeding out of the development, but not because he’d done anything wrong. He claims it was because of threats the girl’s mother had made against him.
He never imagined what she might have been capable of.
The woman submitted to a sexual assault examination, and only after the results came in did Gregory King admit to the intercourse he swears was consensual.
Lies eventually catch up to everyone.
The details of the supposed rape read almost verbatim to the chapter you’ve written from Marjorie’s perspective, albeit without the authorial flair.
Given the fact that King confessed all of this to a previous lover and admitted to an adulterous relationship with Marjorie, it’s possible—if not likely—he told her the story too, inspiring a plan that landed Peter behind bars and Gregory Phillip King six feet underground.
This man should have given up on dating while he was ahead.
According to King’s ex, she was the one to break things off, though no one within their social circle would corroborate this. Fr
iends described her as needy. An inept parent. King was an obsession, some said, the focus under which her daughter quickly became burdensome.
One would think the consequences of filing a false police report would be deterrent enough for women such as Gregory’s ex, but she, like most people, probably assumed she wouldn’t be caught.
Much came out in the ensuing investigation about the girl’s troubled life, and being kidnapped, if she had been, wouldn’t have been the worst to happen to her. It wasn’t the worst thing that happened to Hannah, either, if what I suspect is true. The Ohio girl, like Hannah, resurfaced alive and unharmed, having been taken north by—of all things—a volunteer at a domestic abuse shelter.
I can’t prove anything yet, but the similarities between the Ohio case and Hannah’s disappearance are uncanny. I wish there was a way to pinpoint timing, to see if Marjorie sought out Claire before or after her involvement with Gregory King, but it appears the Ohio case served as a jumping-off point for Marjorie’s escape from Peter. An explanation for everything that has happened to us and to Hannah might have existed all this time. You were just so desperate to prove Matthew’s innocence you didn’t even bother to look.
CHAPTER FIFTY
THERE’S NO EASY WAY to tell you Marjorie might be a fraud, and I’m sure when I do you’ll blame me for supporting this ill-fated project when my doing so was based on bad information. How could I have known Marjorie was an accomplished liar and a convincing actress, other than that she managed to vanish her daughter and somehow get away with it? I suppose that might’ve been a hint, and why shouldn’t you write a book about this? I said the chapter was good, perhaps among your best. You’ll say that, if I suspected something sooner, I should’ve warned you. Instead, I went to Ella and involved the police—not only Deon, but others in nearby states as well, when I could have left well enough alone. When I could have let you maintain plausible deniability. Zero liability because yes, you, too, were lied to.
You’ll say Marjorie is willing to sign a release, a waiver, whatever paperwork the attorneys draft to cover your ass in the event of her exposure, and I’ll remind you she hasn’t done so yet. All of us, Marjorie included, are desperate for that first check—so desperate that, to your eventual detriment, you might overlook legalese in favor of a handshake.
You, Bert, are careless, and no matter how resistant you are, the only way to face this shit storm is head-on. I’ll tell you what I know and what I suspect and we’ll either have it out or not, but you’ll know, and I won’t be the only one with the burden of proof on their shoulders. I convince myself I can do this, rehearsing the words only to come up blank the second I cross the threshold into your office.
“Yes, by next week at the latest,” you say. “Thank you, Tim. Really, thank you.”
The phone clicks, and I’m swept off my feet. Spun around. Kissed on the cheek. The room turns around me, and I’m not sure if I’m dizzy or anxious. Panic feels a lot like this, and yes, dread in light of your conversation with Tim feels warranted. You’re elated, and I hate to be the reason your mood swings back the other way.
“They like it!” you say. “Better than like it! They love it.”
“The book?” My stomach drops. All the convincing I’d done is undone in the moment I realize how ill-received my news will be, now that Tim’s presumably secured a delivery date. Every one of my prepared words disappears, and I’m momentarily speechless.
“Of course the book!” Your ear-to-ear grin reminds me of the man I fell in love with, in the successful early days we’re too far removed from to ever experience again.
“We agreed you’d wait.” By “we,” I mean “I.”
I should’ve told you we needed to fact check, and now it’s too late. You’ve submitted a sample chapter, no doubt the one I’d been fool enough to praise, and the hook is sunk.
“Why aren’t you happy for me?”
“I am. Of course, I am, but I thought we agreed you wouldn’t put anything through without me reading it first.”
“I only sent them one chapter, I swear. Things are going to be all right.”
I can see you believe it, that a weight has lifted.
You need me to be glad for you, and I’m trying.
You hand me nearly half a ream of pages which should be but aren’t double-spaced. There isn’t room for me to make notes, not even in the margins I swear are set narrow on purpose.
“Do you even want comments?” There is no room for them. No blank pages leafed between acts. No gaps between chapters. Nothing.
“The hundred-thousand-foot version is fine.” You shift nervously. “I don’t have time for much else.” On top of everything, it seems you’ve agreed to a quick delivery—a week, if I’m putting two and two together. “I might even be able to get my original publishing slot back.”
“I wasn’t aware you lost it.” I don’t know what else to say or do. Whether or not Marjorie’s story is true, you have no choice but to tell it. I have little choice but to let you.
“Are you sure nothing’s the matter?”
It isn’t like you to ask, especially not more than once, and while there’s tons the matter, I don’t see that there’s anything you or I can do about any of it.
“I’m sure,” I say, resigned to our circumstances, your commitment to this book, and the short time you have to deliver it. “Should we celebrate?” We mark important milestones in your career with champagne at least.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this is our last toast.
You fold me under your chin, a second uncomfortable embrace in fewer than ten minutes. My arms hang loose at my sides. It’s been months since we touched one another, years since either of us has meant it, and hugging you feels more like holding a brother than a lover. Infidelity has taken its toll. I have no idea, yet, what that means in the long run.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
AND YET, I’M STANDING by you, talking myself out of this suspicion in the hope that this book can move forward without an ensuing scandal. Gregory Phillip King wouldn’t be the first man falsely accused of sexual assault, and just because he was innocent doesn’t mean Peter is. I weigh the lengths to which Marjorie has gone to keep Hannah hidden against the consequences of her doing so. The woman has paid dearly. I need to see her as a victim because, if she isn’t, then we are, and that’s worse.
I tell myself that the similarities between Marjorie’s story and that of Gregory King’s ex is coincidental, a fluke. And yet, the back-and-forth won’t stop. As hard as I’m trying to rationalize our position, I see flaws in my self-serving logic. A domestic abuse worker? I don’t know a single other person besides Claire who held a similar job. And yet there’s proof that Marjorie was abused: photographs of cuts, burns, and bruises. Marjorie is unwavering. Marjorie is generally unwavering, I’m reminded. And Hannah doesn’t remember a thing. I’m aware of compartmentalization. Memory suppression. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. She can remember, I’m sure of it, and I wonder if it’s right of me—after all that’s gone on—to ask her to.
Hannah has suffered plenty despite Marjorie’s intentions.
And exactly what am I worried about, anyway? Am I afraid Marjorie is a liar, or that her lies will impact us further? It’s the second, definitely, to which I say we’re limited in our liability by her attestation of fact.
Note to self: contact Legal. I don’t have to give specifics or even acknowledge my doubt. I only have to ask them for the protection any author might want in the event the subject of their book embellishes. This won’t be the first time I’ve reached out to a publishing contact on your behalf, and I don’t need for you to agree to this or even be aware of it.
All I have to do is what I have always done: protect you from yourself.
From Marjorie and the would-be armchair sleuths with nothing better to do than meddle.
Peter isn’t here to call you out. Marjorie won’t want to. Hannah is a variable that may need to be dealt with, but she’s easy enough to discredi
t. In a mental health facility, of all places, and what could she really accuse you of, given her admittedly faulty memory?
Literary forgery involves the intention to defraud for profit or fame.
Take, for example, Danny Santiago’s Famous All Over Town, the memoir of a young Hispanic boy written by, of all things, a white guy. He was up for a Pulitzer when he came under investigation, and as far as I know, he never wrote again. And who can forget James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces? He faced at least ten lawsuits for negligence, false advertising, and our favorite, breach of contract, when it was revealed he was neither a recovering drug addict nor formerly incarcerated. He was shamed, ridiculed, and dropped by his publisher. Refunds were issued to anyone willing to attest they bought his book believing it to be a memoir. He survived to re-emerge years later at the helm of the Full Fathom Five publishing house, subsequently embroiled in allegations of its own. Some people never learn, but you will. Even if some overzealous researcher does a fraction of the work I have to disprove Marjorie’s account, you can go on, perhaps even capitalize on the infamy.
There’s an outside chance I’m worrying over nothing.
Hannah’s identity might come out pre-release, because the investigation into Matthew’s death is moving forward, and Hannah can only be hospitalized for so long. You may write this book and, even if you get a sooner-than-later publishing date, find the subject matter to be old news, all of your work and my concern over nothing. I hate to think what else you might find out about by then, but this isn’t about you and me or the things I should admit but don’t. This is about you fulfilling a contract, holding onto spent money with the hopes of future earnings.
Where We Went Wrong Page 18
