Dead Certain

by Adam Mitzner

  21.

  I call Paul from the back of the cab on my way home from Bubby’s.

  “Hi, it’s Ella,” I say, trying to sound casual.

  “Hey, you. So nice to hear the sweet sound of your voice.”

  Jesus. Do women really fall for this crap? I guess maybe twenty-two-year-olds like Jennifer Barnett. I’d like to think that Charlotte was too smart to be taken in by the likes of Paul Michelson.

  “I wanted to apologize for the way things ended last night. The wine just really hit me all of a sudden. Can I make it up to you tonight?”

  “Of course,” he says, sounding positively wolfish. “How about . . . I don’t know . . . have you ever been to Sant Ambroeus? It’s on Madison and Seventy-Eighth.”

  Paul lives on Park and Seventy-Eighth. I’m not surprised that he suggests we have dinner around the corner from his apartment.

  “Sounds perfect. Does seven work?”

  “It does for me. Can’t wait to see you, Ella.”

  “Me too,” I say.

  When I hang up the phone, I feel both dirty and empowered at the same time.

  Sant Ambroeus is a favorite dining spot of the art crowd, being situated among various galleries a few blocks south of the Met. As we eat, I offer into the conversation tidbits about Charlotte, but Paul doesn’t take the bait. He claims not to know that Charlotte is a writer, and that he’s never been to a Four Seasons hotel in New York City. Why would he? he says. He lives here, after all.

  If anything, he seems more interested in me than my sister. He asks if I like being a lawyer and why I left the DA’s office to join up with my father. I answer with my usual talking points about how it was time for a new challenge and that I was eager to stop making public servant money.

  “There was something I wanted to ask,” he says, suddenly sounding very serious. “Something that’s been bothering me since we graduated.”

  “Okay. What?”

  “Why’d you go to law school?”

  “What do you mean, why? Because it’s a prerequisite for becoming a lawyer.”

  “C’mon, Ella. I knew you back then. The Ella Broden who was the star of Columbia’s drama department. I was devastated when you said you were going to California for law school. You always told me that your post-graduation plan was to be a singer.”

  I have absolutely no remembrance of him caring one way or the other what I did after graduation. Certainly, I don’t recall Paul Michelson being devastated. I was the one who cried every day that summer. He was off screwing Kelly Nelson in Paris.

  He sees my confusion. “You don’t remember, do you? I literally begged you to stay in New York. But you’d gone and applied to law school without even telling me and then sprung on me that you’d been accepted at Stanford and were going in the fall.”

  “I didn’t want to be a singer anymore,” I say as if it were the truth.

  “Obviously. You found the bright lights of criminal-defense law so much more exciting.”

  “Prosecution, actually. And it was exciting.”

  “Hardly a passion, though.”

  “You’re one to talk. I don’t remember you being passionate about derivatives back in college.”

  “That’s different. I didn’t have a gift. My options were more limited in that regard. That wasn’t your story. Look, I’m not trying to make you feel bad. It was a long time ago and you’ve done more than all right for yourself. I just always wondered how it all came about. Funny, right? I mean, I was there in the thick of things, and yet I still don’t have the first idea.”

  Him and me both. I lived it, and it was a blur to me too.

  I dissemble. “I just wanted a different kind of life, I guess.”

  His tight smile leaves no doubt that he’s dissatisfied with my response. Yet he must also know that no amount of cross-examination is going to yield a more revealing explanation, because he lets it end there.

  After he pays the check, Paul looks down at his watch. I do a double-take.

  “That’s a nice watch. What kind is it?” I ask, trying to sound calm.

  “A Patek Philippe.”

  Son of a bitch. That’s the same $50,000 watch Matthew the banker wore.

  “I figure if I’m going to be the last person on earth who doesn’t rely on his smartphone for the time,” he says with a grin, “I might as well have something that’s going to keep its value.”

  He looks at me with lust in his eyes. “I have a very nice bottle of Armagnac that I’ve been dying to crack open—just looking for the right special occasion.”

  I have no idea what Armagnac is, but I also couldn’t care less. The evidence is beginning to mount that Paul Michelson was involved with my sister. Getting inside his apartment might just allow me to find the evidence Gabriel needs for a warrant.

  But then I hear my father’s warning in my head. In truth, I might have ignored it except for the fact that Charlotte’s voice creeps in too, telling me not to be alone with Paul unless I have a plan—and a means to protect myself.

  “That sounds lovely, Paul. But I need to take a rain check, I’m afraid.”

  He puts on a smile as phony as a bad toupee. He must have thought my agreeing to let him buy me dinner at a restaurant near his apartment was akin to executing a letter of intent for sex.

  “Another time, then,” he says.

  At ten, back in my apartment and alone, I feel the need for interaction with a man who doesn’t repulse me. So I begin to compose a text to Dylan.

  Hey there. Wondering how you’re doing.

  I stare at it on my screen for a good ten seconds before I hit the “Send” button. Then I anxiously wait another ten, trying to will his reply. I’m about to put the phone down when I hear the ping.

  I’m good. And you?

  I’m actually better than I’ve been in a long time, considering the speed of his response. I’m not going to put myself that out there, however.

  I’ve had a crappy day, to tell you the truth.

  Sorry. Anything I can do?

  I’m smiling ear to ear. My face is so out of practice that I actually feel the muscles move in an unfamiliar way.

  I decide to bring our relationship to the next step and dial his phone. He answers immediately, and practically the first thing he says is that he was hoping that I would call.

  “I have to be honest,” I say, even though I wonder if honesty is the best policy when embarking on a new relationship, “I’ve been struggling with the whole can-I-meet-someone-new-while-my-sister-is-missing thing.”

  “I totally understand. Timing . . . couldn’t be worse. But I’m a big believer that things happen for a reason . . . at least sometimes. We met, we really clicked, and then this terrible thing happened to your sister. I think . . . I don’t want to get all higher-power on you because I’m not religious, but I do consider myself spiritual and, well, I think the universe does send us messages. And yes, I know that makes me sound like someone dressed in pajamas giving out daisies at the airport, but I believe it.”

  I truly don’t know what to say to that. While I’m formulating a response in my head, he repeats the question he previously texted.

  “Is there anything I can do? To make things easier on you, I mean.”

  I decide to let down my guard. Having a distraction—especially such a handsome one—would definitely improve my mental state.

  “In fact, there is. Would you mind terribly keeping me company tomorrow night? I’m just going crazy here all alone and I don’t want to do it again another night.”

  He asks if I have a favorite restaurant, but I don’t want to be in public, so I invite him to my place for dinner. I’m tempted to suggest that he not expect anything, but I think that’s implied. Another reason I don’t say it is that I’m not certain it’s true.

  DAY SEVEN

  MONDAY

  22.

  It takes every ounce of energy I have to get out of bed on Monday. I drag myself into the shower and then get ready for work
as if my life hasn’t been ripped apart. I’m buoyed only by the thought that after I get through the workday I’ll see Dylan.

  I make it to the office at 9:15. I’m nearly floored when Ashleigh says that my father hasn’t yet arrived. In my three months at the firm, I’ve never gotten to work before him.

  “Have you heard from him?” I ask.

  “No. I guess with Garkov adjourned, he decided to sleep in.”

  Like my father, I also have no pressing work this morning. With Paul Michelson in hunker-down mode, there’s nothing to do there, and while there are some smaller matters to which I could bill time—a Medicare fraud sentencing memorandum, an SEC inquiry into insider trading that’s heading toward an on-the-record interview next month, a call I need to return to our expert witness in an art-forgery case—none of those things is time-sensitive.

  So I stare at the blank walls of my office. Wondering when all of this will finally end, and what it’ll look like when it does.

  My father knocks on my office door a little after ten. He looks like something the cat dragged in. His tie, which is always perfectly knotted with a center dimple, hangs askew, and his complexion is the color of smoke.

  “You look terrible,” I say.

  “Good morning to you too, dear,” he says, trying but failing to smile.

  He steps inside and closes the door behind him. His body crumples into my guest chair. He’s completely and utterly bereft.

  “She’s dead, isn’t she?” he says.

  “I don’t know, Dad. But what I am certain about is that we need to stay positive.”

  He puts his face in his hands. “I . . . don’t know how I’m going to be able to go on if . . .”

  I want to comfort him, but I feel the same way. How can I continue to live in a world without Charlotte?

  My life has always been bisected by my mother’s death. The before and the after. When my mother was alive, my father reminded me of an exotic bird that only appeared at certain times of the year. The two weeks before Labor Day, when he’d work from his home office in our East Hampton house, or the week of winter break when we all went to Aspen and he skied the double-black diamonds. At all other times, he was working. When I was little I thought my father must be a criminal himself because my mother was always telling me that he was “on trial.”

  It now seems as though my life will forever be cut into thirds. Before my mother died. Before Charlotte died. And after.

  At noon, Gabriel calls. As is the case every time I see his number pop up on my caller ID, my heart stops.

  “I have good news,” he says, and for the briefest moment I allow myself to think the good news is that Charlotte has been found safe and sound. Then he crashes that fantasy. “Zach came down and agreed to cooperate with us.”

  Compared to what I had let myself imagine was his good news, this revelation was nothing of the sort. On top of which, I don’t trust a word out of Zach’s mouth.

  “Did you hear me?” he says, a reaction to my silence.

  “Yeah. So, what’s Zach saying?”

  “He came in here with a friend who’s a first-year law student. Said that he’d thought about it, and because he hadn’t done anything wrong, he wanted to help in any way he could. Turns out that the last time he saw your sister wasn’t Wednesday morning like he’s been claiming. He didn’t see her at all on Wednesday. The last time he saw her was on Tuesday morning.”

  Damn him. We had the timeline wrong.

  “Why did he lie about that?”

  “He said that he didn’t come home himself on Tuesday night. He was out with the law-school friend all night, and claims that when he finally came home—which he puts at a little after nine a.m. on Wednesday morning—Charlotte was already gone. He said that he knew she had an early class, so he didn’t think twice about her not being home. Then, when she didn’t come home that night, he figured she was out to get back at him. You know, he stayed out the night before and so she was staying the night somewhere else to give him a taste of his own medicine. But when it was getting close to daybreak, he started to worry. That’s when he called you.”

  I honestly didn’t know how to react. Should I be happy that we had more information? Or feel even more distress because Charlotte has now actually been missing six days, rather than five?

  “What’s to say he’s not lying now?” I say. “Because his law-student girlfriend gives him an alibi for Tuesday night when he doesn’t have one for Wednesday night?”

  “Yeah, I thought of that too. But he passed the poly. She did too.”

  “On everything?” I ask.

  “Like they’re George and Martha Washington.”

  “Jesus.”

  “This is a good thing, Ella. Now we can rule Zach out, and we have the correct timeline. Wednesday-night alibis don’t matter. It’s Tuesday night that we need to focus on.”

  The last time I saw Zach, I didn’t want to believe that he could have killed Charlotte, largely because I couldn’t accept that she might be dead. Now I’m certain that she’s gone, and I want Zach to pay for it. Even if he’s not guilty of killing her, he still bears culpability for the crime.

  “If Zach’s so goddamn innocent, why’d he take so long to tell us this?”

  “He told me what he told you. Everybody thinks it’s the boyfriend. On top of that, there’s the whole race thing. He’s a black man dating a white woman, and he’s cheating on her. And, needless to say, he knew he wouldn’t pass the poly because he’d boxed himself into a lie about when he last saw her. He figured if all that came out, we’d just lock him up and throw away the key.”

  Zach wasn’t wrong. If I were representing him, I would have told him the same thing. Don’t cooperate. The police will eat you alive with that story.

  “And so why the change of heart, then?”

  “He said he thought we’d find the guy who did this without his help. When the weekend passed and we still didn’t have someone in custody, his conscience got the better of him and he decided to help. At least, that’s his story.”

  “And you believe that crock?”

  “You know how it is. Nobody’s ever totally cleared until we get the guy who did it. But, yeah, for the time being, we’re focusing away from Zach. We might still throw an obstruction charge at him, but that would wind up being a sideshow, and I want to direct all our resources to finding your sister. Believe me, I would have loved it if the evidence took us right to Zach, but the fact is that all indications now are that your sister went missing Tuesday night, and Zach’s got a solid alibi. Not just the law student’s say-so, although like I said she passed the poly too, but her dorm has video surveillance. Zach comes in that night around a quarter of ten and doesn’t leave until seven a.m. the next day.”

  “Yeah, but who’s to say he didn’t kill her before ten? Who’s to say that the law student and Zach didn’t do it together?”

  “The timing is very tight. The law student claims that they were together all night on Tuesday. Charlotte left you at Tom’s at about two, right?”

  “I actually don’t know how long she stayed after me, but I left at around two thirty. We ordered food but I didn’t stay to eat, so it’s possible she stayed a little later.”

  “When she left doesn’t matter much because Zach didn’t get out of rehearsal until four thirty. Then he’s off the grid until he shows at Margarita Grill in the Village with the law-school friend. Now, we don’t have a positive ID from the waiters or anyone in the restaurant yet, but the law student puts him there, and her credit-card receipt shows they left at eight forty-two.”

  Of course she paid, I think to myself.

  “So, assuming dinner took an hour, he could have seen Charlotte between four thirty and seven forty-two, right?”

  “Yes, that’s the only window. But logistically, it doesn’t work. His rehearsal was in the Village, and your sister was uptown. Now, it’s possible she came to him and they met at exactly four thirty, but if he went to her, that’s another
thirty to forty-five minutes in which he couldn’t have committed the crime. He’s back downtown at around seven thirty, which eliminates another thirty to forty-five minutes. That’s an hour to an hour and half when he couldn’t have done it. So, at most, he would have had ninety minutes to commit the murder and get the body out of wherever he killed her. Aside from the timing being very tight, I don’t see how he kills your sister in her apartment and leaves with her body—even if he has it hidden in something—without the doormen remembering that. And they don’t remember your sister—or Zach—coming or going at all that day.”

  “Okay, but if she went downtown to him, then he’s got three hours. That’s enough time. And there’s no doorman problem.”

  “It’s enough time, but where and how does he do it? It’s broad daylight in a densely populated part of the city. On top of which, he’s perfectly put together—no ripped clothes or scratches or blood—when he sees the law student at seven thirty.”

  “So she says.”

  “So she says,” he confirms.

  Gabriel’s right, though. It doesn’t make sense for Zach to lure Charlotte to some public spot in the Village and kill her there.

  “What about after dinner?” I ask.

  “That’s even less likely. Like I said, dinner was over at eight forty-two, and then there’s a receipt at a gelato store about three or four blocks away from the restaurant at nine ten. They next show up on the dorm security camera at nine forty-nine, and not again until the following morning.”

  The facts indicate that Zach is a cheater, but not a murderer. Good news there. He and Charlotte were simply two people caught in a dysfunctional relationship. Period. End of story.

  “Okay, so where does this leave us?”

  “We have to redo a lot of our investigating now that the time of Charlotte’s disappearance has moved up a day. We’re going to start with Josh. He’s agreed to come in and meet with us again. But given that he can’t effectively be polygraphed, whatever he says to us is kind of meaningless.”