If You Were Here: A Novel of Suspense

by Alafair Burke

  “I’m just heading out, Mallory. See you in a bit.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “What do you mean?” McKenna heard her own voice jump an octave and hoped Bob wouldn’t appear, letter opener in hand.

  “The girl in the next cubicle overheard the call and wanted all the details. I went to show her the video, but it’s gone.”

  “What do you mean, it’s gone?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just not there anymore.”

  “Is your phone working?”

  “I called you, didn’t I?”

  McKenna could tell that her persistence was irritating the girl, but she didn’t understand how Mallory could erase the video and not know about it. “I’m sorry, but I really, really need it. Is it possible you overlooked it?”

  “No. I’m positive. I only took one picture since then, and it’s gone, too.”

  “Did you erase them?”

  “Not intentionally. I think some dipwad I lent my phone to must’ve deleted them.”

  “What dipwad?”

  “My friend Jen and I were in line at Margon. Line’s always halfway down the block at lunch. Some dude said he needed to call his wife and left the office without his phone. Maybe he accidentally erased it or something.”

  McKenna was certain that nothing involving this video file was accidental. “What did he look like?”

  Another long pause. “I have no idea.”

  “Anything at all that you remember would help, Mallory. Anything.”

  “Jen was telling me about her douchebag boyfriend, who tried to justify cheating because she gained seven pounds when she quit smoking. I wasn’t paying attention. Honestly? I couldn’t pick the guy out of a lineup if my life depended on it.”

  Whoever “borrowed” that phone probably planned that, waiting until Mallory was completely distracted.

  “Wait a second. Is this really such a hot story?” Mallory asked. “Is this like some rival reporter stealing the video so you can’t have it? That totally blows for you.”

  McKenna thanked Mallory for the sympathy, figuring there was no harm in leaving the girl under a mistaken impression. Mallory had already served her purpose to whoever had erased the video from her phone. There was no need for her to know the bigger picture.

  Not that McKenna had any idea what the bigger picture was. As she hung up, she realized she was in way over her head. Someone had wiped out Dana’s media storage account. Someone had tracked down Mallory’s phone. Someone definitely did not want that video to be seen. She found herself wondering whether the malfunction in the MTA cameras might be related, before she realized how insane that idea was.

  She rushed to her desk and e-mailed a file on her computer to her three different e-mail accounts, saved it to a thumb drive, and then hit the print key. She watched the photograph churn from the printer.

  A picture of a button pinned to a backpack. The logo for a group called People Protecting the Planet. This was her only image of the woman on the subway. It was all she had left.

  PART II

  Girls, you’ve got to know when it’s time to turn the page.

  —Tori Amos, “Northern Lad”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  When Scanlin took the Hauptmann file home, he wasn’t entirely sure he would even open it. As he drove to Yonkers, the box from the Records Department filling his passenger seat, he scolded himself for letting McKenna Jordan into his head. Thanks to budget cuts, he had enough work to fill his hours. He didn’t need the added burden of dusty files detailing a perfectly capable adult’s voluntary disappearance.

  I’m a good cop. He had repeated that phrase mentally like a mantra, all the way up the West Side Highway onto the Henry Hudson Bridge. I went through hell back then, but I was a good cop. I’ve always been a good cop. Even then.

  Now that good cop’s dining room table was covered in paper. The DD5s documenting each witness interview. The crime lab reports. Inventories of items seized during searches of Susan’s apartment and office. The file from the investigation had been organized by type of document. Scanlin had rearranged the documents in strict chronological order, refreshing his memory of the case from beginning to end.

  When he’d told the former prosecutor—emphasis on “former”—that he remembered the case well, he’d believed his own words. But he’d learned through years on the job that memory was a fragile thing, more like a crime scene that had to be protected and preserved from alteration than a fixed, permanent object that was impermeable over time. Usually the evolution of an eyewitness’s memory helped the prosecution. He’d seen it so many times. The witness, reluctant and uncertain as she perused the six-pack of suspect photographs. A tentative finger moving toward a candidate, the witness searching for some kind of affirmation from police that she had the right guy. “I think he’s the one.”

  “Good job” was Scanlin’s standard response. A small reward, but he could see immediate effects in the relieved witness: a nod, a small, satisfied smile. By the time the prosecutor asked the witness how sure she was of the identification, she would be “extremely confident.” And when she pointed that accusatory finger at the defendant—in person, at trial—it was as if the suspect’s face were emblazoned on her visual cortex. “I’m absolutely certain.”

  Say something enough and it not only sounds true, it becomes memory.

  Everything he had said to McKenna Jordan about the disappearance of Susan Hauptmann had come from memory. It all sounded true. It all was true. And he had been able to recall those facts effortlessly—to pull them from memory—because he had repeated them so many times to General Hauptmann in those first years after Susan disappeared.

  Susan Hauptmann was last seen on a Saturday, following her usual routine of a long workout, even on Thanksgiving weekend. No one had any inkling of a problem until she failed to report to work the following Monday morning. When Scanlin was called to her Hell’s Kitchen walk-up on Tuesday night, he found the one-bedroom apartment in what her friends described as its usually tidy condition. Neighbors reported no known visitors, noises, or other noteworthy observations. It was as if, as her friend McKenna said so sarcastically, Susan simply evaporated.

  But in less obvious ways, Susan had left behind evidence that pointed Scanlin to his eventual conclusion that she had disappeared of her own volition. Her consulting firm’s managing partner reported that the firm recently notified Susan that she was underperforming, not living up to potential, and unlikely to be a serious candidate for partnership. After her “noble” service in the Middle East, she had failed, in her boss’s estimation, to transition from her military background into the culture of a private firm, where billable hours were more important than efficiency, and the most successful associates understood they could forge their own version of a chain of command.

  At the same time, according to Susan’s sister, their father was pushing her back into that familiar culture. “The General,” as the girls had learned to address their two-star father, had been temporarily appeased by Susan’s following his footsteps to West Point, but he had never accepted her decision to go to business school. He’d hoped that her stint in Afghanistan would persuade her that life was better spent in service to her country than as yet another corporate lackey. His words, recited by Gretchen, were right on Scanlin’s dining room table, staring at him from her DD5: “Our father would always say, ‘The only thing lawyers and consultants have ever created is more work for lawyers and consultants.’ ”

  After a full career in the military, George Hauptmann was launching his own firm to do contract work for the government. One of Susan’s friends from West Point had already signed on, and the General was pushing Susan to make the move or, at the very least, go back on active duty. Scanlin had his fair share of problems with Jenna, but he could not imagine wanting to send his daughter to war—especially the two wars that were raging wh
en Susan Hauptmann disappeared.

  She had a million friends, but none of them close. She dated, but no boyfriends. Two careers, but no successes. She was a woman who had nowhere to belong. How many times had Scanlin restated these facts, cementing them into his memory with each new recitation? No sign of a struggle. No sign of foul play. A woman in a time of “emotional and professional crisis”—those were the euphemistic words Scanlin had used gently with the father when what he’d really wanted to say was “You drove your daughters away, the ways fathers can. Now one’s a junkie, and one has run away from you.”

  All those facts were true. But memory was malleable. It was selective. Some facts hardened, and others fell away. As he relived the course of the investigation from beginning to end, he found his present self arguing with his former self. How did she leave New York? There were no plane tickets, bus fares, or car rentals on her credit cards. No large cash withdrawals. She’d left behind her driver’s license, passport, and every other possession. When did she leave? Perhaps most important, if she really did leave of her own accord, why had she never resurfaced? Runaways, whatever their age, eventually returned, but even after the death of her father, Susan remained missing.

  MISSING.

  That was the header on the flyers plastered on telephone poles and parking meters across Manhattan as November turned into December. Basic data: thirty-two years old, white female, five feet seven, 140 pounds. In the photograph, shoulder-length blond waves encircled her wide face, marked by a broad smile and gleaming green eyes. She was beautiful. And she was a missing young white woman with an impressive background and influential father. The case had gotten attention.

  He remembered all the wack-job calls to the tip line: spottings at bodegas, bookstores, Knicks games. None of them panned out. Well-intentioned but mistaken tipsters believed she was a current coworker, classmate, fellow yoga aficionado. As he leafed through the old notes, he saw that one guy (anonymous) had claimed to have had sex (anonymously) with the missing woman six months earlier in a restaurant bathroom. No information about her current whereabouts.

  The tip—viewed in the context of a fresh look at the entire file—reminded Scanlin of another piece of paper he had just seen. He pulled the DD5 of one of Susan’s colleagues, Jared Klein. Like most everyone else who knew her, he was utterly perplexed by her disappearance. Scanlin remembered prompting Klein, as he always did, to think of anything—anything at all—that might have been unusual. Klein had shaken his head, but Scanlin could tell he was holding back.

  “Now’s not the time for secrets,” Scanlin had warned.

  “It’s not a secret. It’s just— You know, maybe I misunderstood.”

  “Misunderstood what?”

  “Last year, we were working late, as usual. We had a couple glasses of wine at dinner. Everyone else left, and it was just the two of us. She leaned in and—I don’t know, it was like she was going to kiss me or something. I stopped it. Last thing I needed was a sexual harassment suit or worse. I expected her to brush it off like a stupid late-night moment, but she got—well, I guess I’d say aggressive. Like, who was I to reject her? The next morning she seemed totally normal, and I’ve always thought maybe it was me who had cloudy judgment that night. But now I’m wondering if maybe I saw a hidden side of her. Jeez, I feel bad saying this about her now.”

  It had seemed like a stretch at the time. And the anonymous tip about the anonymous sex had seemed like nonsense. The neighbors’ observations about all of the people—mostly men—coming and going from her apartment had seemed totally consistent with the depiction of a woman who socialized regularly and operated in male-dominated work settings. The half-empty box of condoms in the nightstand had seemed like a standard precaution for a heterosexual adult woman.

  But all of it together? Maybe there had been a side to Susan Hauptmann that her friends and family didn’t know.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  McKenna looked at her watch. Five-ten P.M. Patrick would be leaving work soon. She sent him a text.

  Guess who pulled a pop-in on the Upper East Side? Meet me in the modern wing.

  He responded immediately.

  You’re here?

  Yes. Modern. Electric chair.

  Bike gear or no?

  He was asking whether he should change into his usual commuter wardrobe, or if they would be going somewhere that required proper attire.

  Cleaned-up version requested, por favor.

  The Metropolitan Museum of Art was almost a quarter mile long and occupied over two million square feet. When McKenna first moved to New York, she would roam the hallways, thinking about Claudia Kincaid, the runaway preteen heroine of one of her favorite childhood tales, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. She would imagine what it would be like to live in the depths of this huge museum, as Claudia had with her little brother, scrounging coins from the fountain and sleeping on the historic beds.

  Now McKenna was one of those locals who hopped into the museum a few times a year to see a special exhibit or favorite sections—or, in her case, favorite section, the modern wing. On this particular day, she was taking in one particular piece—Andy Warhol’s silkscreen of an empty electric chair. A friend had published an entire essay dedicated to this little silkscreen’s implications about humanity’s fascination with death.

  Of course, her visit had nothing to do with art. She was here for Patrick.

  When Patrick first told her he worked at the museum, she was so jealous. She also came to realize how much his continued employment revealed about his values. About a quarter of West Point graduates opted for lifelong military careers; those who didn’t had their choice of lucrative professions. Corporate headhunters jumped at the chance to land the kind of leadership skills found in junior military officers. Private security firms paid top dollar for ex-military types willing to provide protection work in dangerous locations. One of Patrick’s army friends insisted he was a makeup importer and exporter, but when McKenna asked about the merits of mineral foundation, he looked at her as if she’d asked about soaking her hair in gasoline. When she pointed out his lack of cosmetic expertise to Patrick, he gave her a list of friends who probably shouldn’t be questioned too closely about their work. CIA, perhaps. Maybe sensitive cultural liaison work for the State Department? she wondered. Hopefully not hired mercenaries, but she kept her distance just in case.

  Patrick, on the other hand, had gone directly from the military to security management for the museum. She’d heard him justify the choice to his wealthier, faster-living friends more often than he would have liked. He felt good working for a nonprofit. He enjoyed the diverse cast of characters who filled the building. He was surrounded every day by some of the most impressive art on the planet. But what had struck McKenna the most about Patrick’s employment when they first met was its stability. He wasn’t one of those people always trying to climb to the next step, who saw the present as a bridge to the future. He wasn’t like her.

  On the other hand, she hadn’t realized that ten years would go by without even one change.

  “We do have other collections in this museum, you know.” Patrick took a seat next to her on the bench across from the Warhol.

  She rested her head against his shoulder. “Good day?”

  “Fine. We had a close call this afternoon with a girl who fell into a Matisse, but luckily there was no damage.”

  Thanks to films like The Thomas Crown Affair, the average person believed that museum security was all about high-speed, high-tech heist prevention. Little did they know that the most significant losses came from damage, not theft. The water delivery guy rolls a flat of Poland Spring bottles into a Renoir. A fresco is hung on too small a hook. A Rodin sculpture’s pedestal simply gives out one day. And every year, a big chunk of damage was inflicted by girls who drank too mu
ch, ate too little, and insisted on tackling the city in five-inch heels. One little topple and suddenly Philippe Bertrand’s sculpture of Lucretia is missing a foot.

  “How about you? I’ve overheard a few people in the museum talking about your Big Pig article.”

  McKenna had filed her article about Judge Knight with the title “Should This Man Be Calling Balls and Strikes?” It was a reference to the confirmation testimony of the current chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, who had stated that a good judge was like a neutral umpire. To jazz it up, NYC magazine had gone with a close-up photograph of Knight’s bloated face, the words BIG PIG stamped across him like a USDA beef rating.

  The response to the story had been swift. A spokesperson for the chief judge had promised a thorough investigation. Reacting to speculation about his resignation, Judge Knight had issued a statement attacking the tabloid culture of the media and promising full vindication.

  But McKenna wasn’t here to talk about Frederick Knight. “You too tired for a little outing?” she asked.

  “No, I’m good. What were you thinking? Dinner? A celebration?”

  While Patrick’s moods were ever constant, hers were frustratingly tied to external achievements. In light of the Knight article, he assumed she’d want to spike the football.

  “Dinner does not count as an outing. Dinner is just . . . dinner. This is an actual outing.” It dawned on her that she’d never asked him why he had left work early the previous day. “Speaking of which, what was your outing yesterday?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I tried calling when Dana’s Skybox imploded, and your office said you left early. It was right after four.”

  He gave her an exasperated look and shook his head. “Incredible. I leave my desk to walk the floor, and they tell people I’m gone. One of our trustees nearly stroked out when he thought I stood him up.” He got up from the bench and held out his hand. “Now, what is this about an outing?”