by Ian K. Smith
“Tell me what you know about Tinsley,” I said.
“Where do I start?”
“Whatever comes to mind first.”
“Tinsley is a very independent girl. She has a great heart. She’s a free spirit. She’s beautiful and fun. She doesn’t care about stuff lots of her friends care about. For good or for bad she’s her own person.”
“What doesn’t she care about so much?”
“Her family’s money.”
“She doesn’t like being rich?”
“I didn’t say that. She doesn’t like the way it controls people.”
“Being poor can control a person too.”
Blair shrugged. “I have to admit that I don’t know about being poor,” he said. “But I imagine it’s controlling too.”
“What can you tell me about her family?”
Blair took a beat before answering. “That was a problem for her. I never realized it until I met them.”
“How’s that?”
“They had some weird shit going on. I mean, no one’s family is perfect. But it’s like they had this crazy vibe. The mother puts up this facade. She wants them to appear perfect, but they have problems like anyone else. She and Tins fought all the time.”
“About what?”
“All kinds of stuff. Her father. How much money they wasted on stuff. The environment. Politics. Her parents are staunch conservatives. Tins is very progressive. I spent one weekend at their Michigan summerhouse and swore I’d never do it again.”
“Speaking of politics, did you know Tinsley had a black boyfriend?”
He smiled. “No, but I’m not surprised. Tinsley is the kind of girl that doesn’t see color like that.”
I thought about what my father had said about everyone seeing color, even the most liberal. It didn’t seem it would be helpful to inject that into the present conversation.
“What has he said about her disappearance?” Blair asked.
“Not much lately,” I said. “He’s dead.”
“Dead like he just died, or dead like he was killed?”
“The latter.”
Blair’s eyes widened as he sat back in his chair. Murder was not a normal part of the lexicon in this leafy Connecticut city.
“Tell me about some of her friends,” I said. “Did she have lots of them, or was she more of a loner? She didn’t seem to have many in her IG posts.”
“Tins was a popular girl,” Blair said. “But she really didn’t let a lot of people in. I mean, people liked her a lot and invited her to everything, but she was just one of those girls who always had her guard up. You thought you knew her, but you really didn’t. Even though the money didn’t matter to her. She was almost embarrassed by it. She didn’t like it when other people found out about her family. Made her uncomfortable.”
“What about her best friend, Hunter Morgan?” I asked.
Blair rolled his eyes. “The sentry still stands,” he said.
“Meaning?”
“Hunter is a big reason why Tins never got close to anyone. She was always so damn protective, even with people who had their own shit and didn’t give a damn about the Gerrigan name or money. Hunter was always there, even when she didn’t need to be. She went to Georgetown, but almost every weekend she was on our campus. She was a pain in the ass.”
“Sounds like a sore subject,” I said.
“Fighting for your girlfriend’s attention gets old,” he said. “Especially when you should be the priority.”
“But Tinsley didn’t see it that way?”
“Unfortunately, as strong and independent as Tins could be, when it came to Hunter, Tins saw what Hunter wanted her to see.”
“Which was?”
“That she was her most loyal friend and would do anything for her.”
“Like?”
“Like when we went to Chicago one weekend to go to a Cubs game and she tried to kick some guy’s ass that was flirting with Tins at a bar in Wrigley. Punched out two of his teeth. They had to pull Hunter off him. She went totally ballistic.”
“Sounds like an excessive response for simple barroom flirtations.”
“We all know it wasn’t just the guy that had set her off,” Blair said. “Hunter had her own crush on Tins, but Tins didn’t see it that way.”
34
THE ENTIRE FLIGHT BACK to Chicago I couldn’t stop thinking about what Blair Malone had said about Tinsley’s relationship with Hunter and her relationship with her parents. What was it that Tinsley saw in Hunter that caused her to have a blind spot the rest of her friends clearly didn’t have? Then there were the family dynamics. I already knew that something wasn’t right, but Blair made me suspect that this wasn’t just the normal family dysfunction. There was something troubling that ran deep, and they were doing all they could to keep it buried.
That suspicion was confirmed only the next day when I found myself sitting across from Violet Gerrigan, who wore a fitted emerald-green wool skirt with a matching jacket and a strand of pearls, bigger than the one she’d worn the first time we met and heavy enough to sink a cruise ship. The crocodile-skin purse adeptly matched the suit. I imagined every day she walked out of her manse was like a big middle finger to PETA.
“I am grateful for all that you’ve done,” she began. “But I will no longer be needing your services.” She opened her bag with a quick slide of an enormous gold lock and pulled out a check. She placed it on my desk, but I kept my eye on her.
“You’re firing me?” I said. This was the first time someone had asked me to stop in the middle of the investigation.
“I’m not firing you at all,” she said. “You’ve worked very hard, and I appreciate all your efforts. I’m letting you know that you’ve done enough.”
“But I haven’t finished the job,” I said. “You hired me to find your daughter, and she’s still missing.”
“I understand and appreciate your determination, but we’ve decided to make this a more private matter.”
“Doesn’t get more private than a private investigator.”
She smiled tightly, as if she were making an accommodation. It was like patting me on the head. Good little boy.
“I’m sure you will agree I’ve compensated you generously for your time and efforts,” she said, nodding toward the check on my desk. I picked it up and let out a whistle. Two hundred and fifty thousand. Even by my standards that was impressive for just shy of two weeks’ worth of work.
“Who sent you here?” I said.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, her neck stiff.
“Who sent you here to fire me?”
“Excuse me, but no one sent me here,” she said indignantly. “I don’t get sent anywhere.”
I wondered if they had called off the police too.
“Do you know where your daughter is?”
“I do not.”
I didn’t believe her for a second.
“Do you still want to find her?” I asked.
“What kind of ridiculous question is that?”
“Not ridiculous at all. You claim that you don’t know where she is, and I’m making some progress, yet out of nowhere you show up in my office and want me to stop investigating.”
“This is nothing personal,” she said. “It’s simply that my husband and I can handle it from here. With all due respect, we ask that you just leave things alone. We would appreciate your discretion in this matter. Whatever you’ve discovered should stay between us.”
“You haven’t even asked me for a final report,” I said. “I’ve called you twice the last couple of days, and you didn’t even call me back. All this money and you don’t even want to know what I’ve learned? Or maybe you already know from the two guys you’ve had following me.”
“I’ve never asked anyone to follow you,” she said.
I believed her.
“Did you know that Tinsley was pregnant?” I asked.
Her back stiffened, and her jaws tightened.
“I d
id not.”
I didn’t believe her.
“Did you know that her boyfriend, who is likely the father of your unborn grandchildren, was found dumped in an alley in Englewood with a single bullet to his head?”
She remained stoic. “I did not.”
Again, I didn’t believe her. What was she hiding and why? Considering this might be the last time we spoke, I needed to press her to see if she would give me anything. Her calm didn’t make sense. Something or someone had turned her from the anxious mother who had called me once a day since she walked into my office almost three weeks ago to a calm, satisfied woman who had moved on to other matters.
“Do you know a Dr. Gunjan Patel?” I asked.
She nodded softly.
“What is she hiding?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said.
Violet Gerrigan was a terrible liar. It was then that I realized she knew everything that was going on, and telling her what she already knew wouldn’t change her mind. I picked up the check and ripped it in half, then slid the pieces back across the desk. Her money wouldn’t change my mind either. I’d lost my job with the department because I couldn’t play along quietly with something I knew was wrong. I wasn’t about to start now.
“An innocent boy who had his entire life ahead of him is now in the ground with a single bullet wound in his skull,” I said. “I think your daughter’s disappearance is directly related to his murder. I also think that somewhere in all this mess is some kind of cover-up. Something tells me that finding out what happened to your daughter will help me find out who killed her boyfriend and why. Your daughter is alive, and you know where she is.” I pushed the check back to her. “A quarter of a million is a lot of money, but even if you put ten times that in front of me, you wouldn’t be able to buy my silence. I don’t know what game your family is playing, but that kid’s life wasn’t a game. The least he deserves is the truth, and I won’t stop till I get it.”
“Have it your way,” Violet Gerrigan said. She picked up the torn check, then left. I looked out the window and watched her walking to her car. The chauffeur was the same as the first time she had come, but the car was different. This time he escorted her into the back of a midnight-blue Rolls-Royce SUV. My mind quickly went back to my conversation with Joseph, the doorman at Chopper’s apartment building. He’d described a similar car and color belonging to the man who had argued with Chopper in the back of the building. There was very little chance this was a coincidence. It was Randolph Gerrigan who had gone to Chopper’s apartment building that night. But more importantly, what was the reason for their argument? And why had both of them lied to me when they said they had never met each other?
35
NO SOONER HAD THE Rolls driven away than I was on the phone with Burke.
“Violet Gerrigan just left my office,” I said.
“And she told you that your services were no longer needed,” he said.
“How did you know?”
“Because I got the same message.”
“Was there a reason behind the message?”
“None. Just the order from up top to let it go.”
“And will you do that?”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“But I do.”
“I figured you might say something like that.”
“There’s still Chopper’s killer out there somewhere,” I said.
“We’re still looking, but we don’t have anything yet,” he said.
“I won’t stop until I know what happened,” I said.
“You think I didn’t already know that? But I’m warning you to tread lightly and watch your back. Just because Gerrigan has more money than God doesn’t mean he’s soft. He can be a mean and dangerous sonuvabitch when he wants to be.”
I SAT ACROSS FROM my father, both of us sipping an expensive wine whose provenance he had carefully explained and whose details I had already forgotten. After lunching on a delicious coq au vin and finishing with a pear tarte tatin, we had retired to his first-floor study, full of old wood and crowded bookshelves. His diplomas, going all the way back to high school, still hung on the walls next to my mother’s. He had always complained that even though they both went to Stanford, her law school diploma looked fancier than his medical diploma. That was a particular sore spot my mother had liked to prod every so often when she was alive, reminding him that the extravagance of the diploma corresponded to the academic rigor it took to earn it. Florence, his housekeeper and cook all wrapped into one, had made sure nothing had changed in this room. She had the fire going at full roar.
“What do you know about Dr. Gunjan Patel?” I asked.
“Smart,” he said. “She’s either Harvard or Yale, I forget which one. She doesn’t publish a lot, but when she does, it’s usually something that pushes the envelope.”
“How?”
“She’s a big believer in transcranial magnetic stimulation.”
“Oh, TMS,” I said confidently.
“You know it?” he asked, eyebrows arched.
“No, but it felt good to acronymize it before you did.”
My father swooshed his wineglass a bit, then took a sip. I don’t know why, but I did the same. I would rather be drinking an ice-cold root beer in a frosted cup, but we were ensconced in his study, and the fire’s flames were magnificently bouncing off signed first editions of Maya Angelou and James Baldwin.
“TMS is an unconventional treatment for depression,” he said. “It’s an in-office procedure. An electromagnetic coil is placed against the scalp near the forehead. When the machine is turned on, it painlessly delivers a magnetic pulse that stimulates nerve cells in the dorsolateral prefrontal brain cortex.”
I smiled patiently. He enjoyed using those big words, especially when he could run them off in sequence. I had found that it was always better to just indulge him. He always found a way to circle back to the point at hand.
“According to mostly anecdotal evidence, this stimulation seems to ease depression symptoms and improve mood,” he continued. “But it’s typically not used unless cognitive therapy and medications aren’t working.”
“So, she has a pretty bad case of depression?” I surmised.
“Since TMS isn’t a first-line treatment, I would say you’re probably right.”
I considered his words for a moment, then explained to him the web of complications with Randolph Gerrigan bopping his daughter’s therapist and the therapist’s husband speaking to his wife’s patient seventy-five times over the span of a month and claiming it had to do with art. There was also the issue of the two divorce filings that hinted at a string of extramarital relations.
“Sounds like a major clusterfuck,” my father said.
“That would be your professional opinion?”
“It would indeed.”
36
I ARRIVED AT MY office building exhausted and hungry from staying up half the night reviewing my notes and reports. I was angry that people like the Gerrigans lived in a twisted world where they felt like anything or anyone was available for purchase. Not only couldn’t I be bought, but I was going to figure out what was behind it all and bring some justice to Chopper. When I reached down to unlock my office door, I found a small yellow Post-it note stuck to my door. A phone number had been written on it with the simple words Call me.
I opened the door, dropped my gym bag in the chair just inside the door, walked into my office, and dialed the number from my cell phone as I took a seat behind my desk. A woman picked up.
“This is Ashe Cayne,” I said. “You left a message on my door.”
“I did,” she said. “My name is Abigail Symington. I got your name from Blair. He said Tinsley is missing, and you’re looking for her.”
“I am. Do you know her?”
“We were classmates at Oberlin. I lived down the hall from her in the dorm.”
“Have you heard from her lately?”
“That’s why I
’m calling you. Can we discuss this in person?”
“Sure. I can meet whenever you’re free.”
“In thirty minutes. At the Bean. I’ll be wearing a yellow shirt and black pants.”
PRECISELY TWENTY-NINE minutes later, Abigail Symington stood underneath the twelve-foot arch of one of Chicago’s most photographed structures—Cloud Gate, otherwise known as the Bean because of its striking resemblance to a kidney bean. The 110-ton gleaming stainless steel sculpture had been erected in 2006 just off Michigan Avenue in Millennium Park and quickly became a magnet not just for tourists but even die-hard Chicagoans who were hypnotized by the distorted reflection of the city’s skyline.
Abigail looked nothing like I expected. She was Filipino and petite, with large brown eyes and long curly hair. She smiled nervously as I approached.
“I only have a few minutes,” she said. “I need to get back to the office for a conference call.”
“Understood.” I nodded to an empty nearby bench. “Let’s go over there.”
We walked over, and once we were seated, she started talking.
“Tinsley and I weren’t really close, but we had mutual friends, so we hung out sometimes. We both are from Chicago, so we had that connection. After school I went to DC to work for the Legal Defense Fund. I moved back here a couple of years ago to work as a paralegal while I study for my LSATs. We kept in touch via social or sometimes we would be at the same parties. I really started to know more about her last year. She doesn’t let a lot of people in. I guess with who her family is, she’s really guarded.”
“Did she ever talk about her family?”
“Not much. She just made it a point that money was not her thing and she was her own person. She’s a very fair person. Very sweet.”
“When was the last time you talked to her?”
“About three weeks ago?”
“Do you remember what you talked about?”
“Very clear in my head. She asked me a legal question about charities.”
“What was the question?”
“She wanted to know if a 501(c)(3) organization was allowed to rent property to a for-profit private company and not charge the company rent.”
