If You Were Here: A Novel of Suspense

by Alafair Burke

  She finally closed her e-mail to avoid the incoming Alerts. She was interested in an entirely different news story. Word of the explosion in Brentwood had gotten out, as Agent Mercado had predicted. Although details were fuzzy, multiple media outlets were reporting that the FBI had two people in custody on suspicion for possession of weapons of mass destruction.

  When her cell phone rang, she was tempted to ignore it but checked the screen to see if she recognized the caller. Patrick. She had tried to sound cool when she left a message earlier, but he had probably heard about her firing.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “So it’s true?” They’d been together long enough that apparently “hey” could say everything.

  “How much have you heard?” she asked.

  “Someone burned you on the Knight e-mails, and the magazine’s throwing you under the bus.”

  “That’s— Well, no. It’s worse. It started when I went to see Jason Eberly this morning—”

  “Your secret boyfriend?”

  He was trying to cheer her up, but he had no idea how much her world had changed today. That was her fault. She hadn’t even been honest with him about her reason for contacting Jason. “He called an FBI agent for background information about that environmental group.” She didn’t bother to say “the group I thought Susan might be part of.” She knew his thoughts on the issue. “The next thing I know, the agent was hauling me in for questioning because they’re a bunch of ecoterrorists. There was an explosion at a house where they were storing bomb materials. Then the FBI showed up at my office with a search warrant, right when Knight was bringing down the hammer on those e-mails. Plus, the magazine is saying there’s evidence that I was the one who fabricated the e-mails. Bob actually asked me if I was under too much pressure. They think I’m going crazy.”

  “I’m coming home.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course. I’ll be right there. I know it’s bad, McKenna, but everything’s going to be okay. I promise. We’re going to be fine.”

  Those words brought more comfort than McKenna ever could have predicted. She found herself watching the clock on her computer, counting down the minutes she had to sit here alone. She needed someone with her right now. Not any someone—Patrick.

  She finally forced herself to pull her attention back to the real world. The New York Times seemed to have the most detailed coverage about last night’s explosion. McKenna recognized the names of the two women in custody—Carolyn Maroney and Andrea Sanderson—from the list that Agent Mercado had shown her.

  That left only two more names, one male and one female. She typed the man’s name, Greg Larson, into Google, but the search brought up too many results to be helpful. She narrowed it down to “Greg Larson and People for the Preservation of the Planet.” She found a few hits quoting Larson at various environmental protests. According to several reports, he was the de facto leader, even though the group eschewed any hierarchical structure.

  The remaining female name on Mercado’s list of names, Pamela Morris, also proved too common to be of use. Even when McKenna coupled it with the environmental movement, she found nothing.

  She called a homicide detective she knew at the Thirteenth Precinct. Female. Youngish. Most important, Detective Forbus owed her a favor for running a story three months ago about a gang killing that no one cared about until it consumed four full pages of a widely circulated magazine.

  Forbus picked up on the second ring. “Forbus.”

  Though McKenna started in with introductions, but Forbus remembered from the earlier case. “Tough break about the magazine,” Forbus offered. “If it helps any, everything you said about Knight is a hundred percent accurate. If he didn’t write those e-mails, I guarantee you he thought every last word.”

  “Put it this way,” McKenna said. “If you framed a guilty man, would his guilt really matter?”

  “Nope, but like I said: if it helps.”

  “What would help is a search. Greg Larson. Forty-six years old. Has at least one arrest, for criminal trespass at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland in 2007.”

  “Yep, got him. And that’s one of many. All misdemeanors—petty stuff. Trespassing. Vandalism. Public disorder. Disobeying the order of a police officer. Oregon. California. Arizona. Montana. Illinois. D.C. D.C. D.C. D.C. Texas. D.C. Busy guy.”

  If Larson was running the movement and had been willing to face arrest so many times for his beliefs, he was unlikely to divulge any information. McKenna had to hope that the last person on Mercado’s list might know something—and had lived. “One more name?” she asked. “Pamela Morris.”

  “And?”

  “That’s all I’ve got.”

  “Date of birth? State? Something?”

  “Nothing.” She thought about the age ranges of the other residents in the house. The youngest was Carolyn Maroney, twenty-two. Greg Larson was the oldest. “Between twenty and fifty,” she offered. “And probably in New York, at least until recently.”

  “Very helpful,” Forbus deadpanned. McKenna waited as she heard fingertips against a keyboard. “Yeah, what I thought. I’ve got fourteen driver’s licenses in New York alone. And just to be clear, this counts as a favor—an actual call-it-even favor, whether it helps you out or not.”

  “Fine. Um, narrow it down to criminal histories.”

  More typing. “Yeah, okay. Down to one, but it’s way back. Pamela Morris. Thirty-nine years old. Two prostitution pops in the late nineties. Nothing since. Maybe got out of the life. Happens sometimes, even outside of Hollywood fairy tales.”

  “Can you run her with the date of birth in the general databases? See what you find?”

  “Look at you, little Miss Jessica Fletcher.” More typing. “Yep, I got her. Huh.”

  Huh? Huh was usually bad.

  “ ‘Huh’?”

  “Well, it could be anything. But your girl’s very low-radar. No driver’s licenses. No car registrations. No NCIC hits.” Meaning no involvement with law enforcement. “Very minimal. Like, off the grid.”

  “Does she have contacts in the area?” Pamela Morris might be able to confirm that Susan Hauptmann was the woman from the subway platform.

  “All right. Let me see.” More typing. “I’ve got a mom here. Arresting officer called her after one of the two prostitution busts. Loretta Morris.” She rattled off an address in Jersey City. More typing. “From what I can tell, the mom’s still at the same address. That’s all I’ve got, Jordan.”

  “What about a booking photo on the prostitution pop?”

  “Pop. Listen to you with the cop talk.” More typing. “Looks like she was cited and released on her first arrest, but yeah, she got booked on the second pop. I’ll shoot it over to you. E-mail okay?”

  “I’ll take it.” McKenna started to recite her work address out of habit, then caught herself and provided her Gmail account instead.

  “I’ll make a note of it. And best of luck. Because if you ask me? Whoever Pamela Morris is, she doesn’t want to be found.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Scanlin wasn’t usually the type to cheer on members of the judiciary. Judges sat behind their benches, literally elevated above the courtroom and clothed in antiquated garb to remind the world of their superiority. Yet they knew nothing about the real world affected by their rulings. (Even the word played into the myth of judicial superiority, as if they actually “ruled” over others.) How many times had Scanlin seen routine consent searches bounced, all because some lefty judge who had never been north of Eighty-sixth Street believed that no one who was carrying would be stupid enough to let a cop check his pockets? Judges were glorified lawyers who didn’t know the unwritten rules of the streets. Even the judges who tended to rule for the state—judges like Frederick Knight—did it more for political popularity or disdain of criminal defendants than respec
t for police work.

  But what was that saying about the enemy of my enemy being a friend? The maxim must hold water because, on this particular day, Scanlin found himself hoping that Frederick Knight was out there somewhere, treating his gluttonous self to all the fried eggs and bacon in lower Manhattan.

  Just that morning, New York City magazine had issued a retraction of a hatchet job they’d run against Knight the previous day. The language on the website was formal but apologetic, explaining that the contemptuous e-mails supposedly authored by Knight were apparently fabricated; offering sincere regrets about the story; and promising a thorough investigation and complete transparency as additional information was gathered. Scanlin’s favorite line was the final one: New York City magazine has terminated its relationship with the author of the article, McKenna Jordan.

  In the cutthroat world of New York City media, the circling sharks smelled fresh, oozing blood. Several other media outlets—the Daily News, New York magazine, Gawker, Mediabistro—were comparing the emerging story to other journalistic scandals, but it was the New York Post that went furthest, not only digging in a knife but giving the blade a vengeful twist.

  Although NYC magazine promises its readers a thorough investigation into the events that led to the fabricated article, critics will argue that the scandal should be anything but a surprise. The reporter in question, McKenna Jordan, née Wright, made headlines a decade ago as an assistant district attorney. Wright was the junior prosecutor who went to the press with evidence that she claimed would prove that a twelve-year police veteran’s shooting of nineteen-year-old felon Marcus Jones was not justified. Her allegation poured fuel on a fire simmering between civil rights activists and supporters of the NYPD. She resigned from the district attorney’s office when an investigation revealed further evidence to back the officer’s self-defense claim. She subsequently published a novel that was a thinly veiled depiction of her former life as a prosecutor. And the reporter who ran with her claims all those years ago? His name was Bob Vance. That’s right: the same Bob Vance who now sits as editor in chief at New York City magazine.

  Scanlin wondered if the demise of McKenna Wright Jordan would provide any kind of karmic justice to his old friend Scott Macklin.

  Scanlin couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Macklin. It must have been about six years ago, after Mac heard that Melissa finally had to go to the home. He stopped by with a casserole from his own wife. Scanlin didn’t mention that he already had a freezer full of Pyrex dishes. Apparently Scanlin was going to be treated as the neighborhood widower, even though Melissa was very much alive—at least to him back then.

  Even six years ago, Mac’s decline was obvious. It had been fast. If anything, age had taken hold of him even faster than it had Scanlin. Before, when Mac announced that he was marrying Josefina, he was like Benjamin Button, aging backward, whistling like a giddy newlywed. He insisted that life with Josefina’s young son, whom he treated as his own, only made him feel younger. The guys who sported bags under their eyes from trying to keep up with their own growing broods begged to differ, but no one begrudged Mac his happiness. How could you carry one ill thought about a man who’d do anything in the world for his family and the fellow officers he treated as such?

  But then Marcus Jones pulled a gun, and Mac became the white cop who killed a black teenager. Throw in the reckless, grandstanding antics of McKenna Wright, and Mac’s miraculous reverse aging reversed itself again and then some. By the time Mac came to see Scanlin with the casserole, he just seemed old and sad.

  Now Scanlin opened the second drawer on his desk and pulled out a Rolodex that had been made obsolete by electronic databases. Miscellaneous business cards were stuffed randomly among the yellowing notes. He skipped to the tab marked M and flipped through the entries. MAC. It was the only name the man needed.

  Josefina picked up the phone. She sounded distracted but happy. Harried but not annoyed, like maybe she was balancing the phone between her cheek and shoulder while unloading a bag of groceries. He wished Melissa were still around to answer their phone that way a busy woman does. Before the diagnosis, Melissa had gotten crabby, snapping at the mildest irritation. He chose to think it was the dementia setting in and not the changes between them, but there was no real way to know.

  Mac wasn’t home. His wife asked if she could take a message.

  “I was hoping to talk to him. To, I don’t know . . . catch up.”

  “He’s helping Tommy move a mini-fridge into his dorm room. He should be back in an hour or so.”

  “That little rug rat’s off to college already?”

  “Freshman at Hofstra. He wants to be called Thomas now, but I can’t help it. Mama’s always going to call him Tommy.”

  “I’ll give Mac a call later, then. I don’t know if this is a touchy subject, but it’s about that prosecutor who tried to jam Scott up back when—you know, when he was still on the job.”

  Her end of the line went silent. He pictured her freeze, momentarily distracted from the groceries. Her voice was lower when she spoke. “I don’t know who you’re talking about. Scott— You know how a man is. He shielded us from the details. We don’t like talking about that.”

  Scanlin regretted mentioning it. He should have ended with the polite chitchat and a routine message. “Sure, I totally understand. Trust me, this is a good thing. Karma’s biting the ass of someone who deserves it big-time.” He felt uncomfortable about using profanity with her. “I’ll let you get back to what you were doing. I’ll give Mac a call later.”

  He hit the print key on the New York Post’s delicious massacre of the reporter and former prosecutor in question. He’d bring it to Mac in person. It was even better than a casserole.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Maybe if Patrick had come home at that moment—right when McKenna ended the call with Detective Forbus—everything would have been different. But that wasn’t what happened. She was left there in the apartment, alone with her thoughts.

  And when McKenna was alone with nothing but time and energy, she had to stay busy. She stayed busy by opening the box that had arrived via messenger, courtesy of Adam Bayne, while she was talking to Agent Mercado that morning. According to what Adam had told Patrick, George Hauptmann had one box in storage marked SUSAN. Adam could never bring himself to dispose of it.

  The box was small. If Susan’s father were alive, McKenna could ask him why he had chosen to keep these six cubic feet of his daughter’s belongings. Photographs, school merit certificates, the West Point degree—those items made sense. But as McKenna unpacked the box, she also found a commemorative plate from the Mount Vernon estate, a wine opener from Napa Valley, and a pink plastic Slinky. Were these items from special moments they had shared together? Or had the best intentions to preserve treasured memories collided with the last-minute realities of packing up an apartment?

  McKenna set aside the bulkier items and made a stack of photographs—some framed, some bound in albums, many thrown haphazardly into the box. Flipping through the completed pile provided an escape, a reprieve from reality, while she waited. Waited for what, she didn’t know. For Patrick to come home and make her feel better? For someone to realize that the Knight e-mails were legit? For the mysterious subway woman to emerge, bearing only a superficial resemblance to Susan Hauptmann? For the FBI somehow to unsearch her office? There wasn’t always an end point to waiting.

  She almost missed the picture. So many of them were of people she’d never seen. Or they were old, old, old pictures of the Hauptmanns—George, Carol, Gretchen, and Susan, looking like any other 1970s family in polyester shirts and flared pants. But McKenna paid slightly more attention to the pictures from the college years. West Point. Those beautiful, rolling hills next to the Hudson. The tanned, hard-bodied, buzz-cut men in tank tops and shorts, arms around shoulders, wrestling, tackling each other to the ground. How many times had she teased Patric
k that the U.S. Military Academy was the gayest place on earth?

  Of course, the entire campus wasn’t all young men. Some of the cadets were tanned, hard-bodied young women. Women like Susan, far outnumbered by her male colleagues.

  It shouldn’t have bothered her. The photograph was taken twenty years ago. But the look on Patrick’s face. The smile. The twinkle in the eyes. The joy. She loved seeing that look, which she had always thought was reserved exclusively for her.

  The way his hands rested so comfortably on Susan’s stomach as he hugged her from behind. Susan’s lips on his neck. McKenna’s mind filled with other images of the two of them together. Laughing. Kissing. Removing clothes. Her own intimate memories of her husband, but with Susan.

  Those weren’t the only thoughts pulling at her. From the minute she had shown him the video of the woman on the subway, Patrick had been steering her away from looking into Susan’s death. He had insisted that the woman didn’t look like Susan, even though the resemblance was so clear.

  She felt her fingers shake as she scrolled through her contacts list, searching for Adam Bayne’s phone number.

  He sounded cheerful when he answered. “McKenna, I’m so glad you called. I wanted to make sure that you got the box we sent over. I’m not sure what you were looking for, but that’s all the General kept from Susan’s things.”

  “Yes, it’s here. Thanks for sending it.”

  “Look, McKenna. I—I heard about your situation with the magazine.” She wondered whether there was anyone in America who hadn’t. “Our firm has investigators, computer experts, that kind of thing. Let me know if we can do anything to help.”

  From what McKenna gathered, it was no surprise that Susan’s father had invited Adam to work for him. Adam had been a West Point “Star Man,” a cadet entitled to wear a small star on his uniform collar, signaling his place in the top five percent of his class. Other cadets called them “star geeks” on the assumption that all they did was study, but Adam’s skills went beyond book smarts. He was fearless and decisive, traits that would later serve him well in the Special Forces.