The Affliction Page 16

  The boy on the reception desk took Maggie’s name and made a call, and in short order there appeared a man of about thirty dressed in jeans and a short-sleeved button-down shirt. He had thick straight glossy black hair in a ponytail and hazel eyes, and was preternaturally tall and thin, as if he’d been made of Silly Putty and stretched about a foot longer than the original design specs had called for. She recognized his face from his wedding announcement.

  Maggie followed him through the maze of partitions, noting the industry and noise level all around her. When they were settled in the “room” from which President Liu conducted his empire, beneath gigantic windows facing north with a view of the Empire State Building, she said, “Explain this place to me.”

  “Office space co-op. We’ve bought our own space in FiDi,” Ken said, giving the Realtor’s shorthand for the gentrifying Financial District. “But it’s still being built out. I’ll be sorry to leave here, to tell the truth. There’s always something going on, and when you need answers, there’s usually someone in the coffee room who can answer them. There’s a graphic design firm next door, and two other tech start-ups over there, and a bunch of freelance writers sprinkled around.” He waved his hands to indicate directions.

  “But you’re leaving because . . . ?” said Maggie.

  “It’s what happens next. Got to impress investors. My mom said you need some help with TickTalk?”

  “I do.” She explained the situation and handed him her phone, with the screenshots Stephanie had sent her. “For the sake of the school and for the victim’s privacy, we’d rather not go to the police.”

  “I would also rather you not do that. We already had to postpone our IPO once after a bullying dustup. Let’s see what we can do.”

  He began to type.

  “Do you mind if I watch?” Maggie asked.

  Ken gestured to her to move her chair closer to him. She could see his cursor flying around the TickTalk screens, but to be truthful, he was moving too fast for her to follow.

  “Do you have back doors into users’ accounts?”

  “Up to a point. We have to protect their privacy, but we also have to protect ourselves from people abusing the site. We’d prefer that not be generally known, though. There we go. ‘The girl who finds dead bodies hated the art diva.’ That it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Okay, I’ve got his IP address and username.”

  “Hers, most likely.”

  “Right.”

  “Do they give you their real names when they register with you?”

  “No. Username, password, and e-mail address. The password we can’t see, but often the other two tell you a lot.”

  Maggie peered. The username was Miss305 and the e-mail was miss30567@gmail.com. Neither one told her a thing.

  “Let’s see if that username is turning up on other sites.”

  She watched as he typed and clicked. The username did turn up but was associated with other e-mails. Not helpful.

  “Let’s try sending a message to the e-mail address.” He typed a test and pushed send. It bounced back.

  “Hold on.”

  Ken Liu copied some things onto the back of a Post-it note, then popped up to open a door into the adjoining white cube, where a young woman wearing, for some reason, vintage riding jodhpurs and a pair of flip-flops was typing furiously. Maggie recognized her by her mass of Janis Joplin hair as the woman in the Financial Times article. “Izzy,” Ken said, “are you stacked up?”

  “Not really. Just stalking some asshole I met last night.” Catching sight of Maggie, she added, “Kidding.”

  “Could you get onto the ISP for this IP address, and get them to give us a physical address? You are way better at persuading than I am.”

  Ken was telling Maggie about his wife’s medical training when Izzy came in with a piece of paper and handed it to Ken.

  “Whoa, you are good,” he said.

  “You’re welcome,” said Izzy.

  “I really appreciate this,” Maggie said, tucking the address into her purse.

  “Do me a favor and don’t tell anyone you know me. Our subscribers would go postal.”

  “I understand. My best to your mother.”

  Evelyne Phillips sat in her car for several minutes Wednesday morning, studying the house on Violet Circle. It was dark gray with white trim. The two-car garage at the left of the house was open to the street, and empty of cars. There were three bicycles hanging from the ceiling on hooks, and a smaller bike, a child’s, leaning against a wall. The house itself looked asleep, with curtains drawn and no lights on, although it was late morning.

  She got out of her car and walked to the front door. Cheerful annuals in little beds at either side of the front steps, purple and white petunias, struggled to keep their heads up. They looked as if they needed water. Phillips pushed the metal gray button beside the door.

  She could hear the bell shrilling inside, but through the narrow windows of the entry, she could see no movement inside the house.

  “You looking for Marcia?” a voice called from somewhere behind her. Phillips turned to see that from the house across the circle, identical to this one except painted colonial blue, a woman in tennis clothes had stepped out of her kitchen door.

  “Looking for Jesse, actually,” said Phillips.

  “He’s in there,” said the woman, coming across the paved circle toward her. “He gets up around now. Marcia’s at work.”

  “He isn’t answering the bell,” said Phillips.

  “No, he doesn’t,” the woman said. “You from Social Services?”

  “No. Detective Phillips.” Evelyne showed her ID.

  “I knew you weren’t the last social worker but they keep changing. Come around to the side.”

  Phillips followed the woman to the garage, where she tried the knob of the back door into the kitchen. It was unlocked, and the two went in.

  “Jesse! Jesse—it’s Mrs. Keegin,” the neighbor woman called loudly.

  No sound, no answer.

  “Jesse—there’s someone here who needs to speak with you. Are you going to come down, or should we come up?”

  After a moment a high voice called, “Who?”

  “It’s a lady. She needs to speak with you. Are you coming down? We can come up if you want.”

  The door closed loudly and Phillips thought she heard a creak of floor above them. She was about to add her voice to Mrs. Keegin’s when the neighbor put up her hand to keep her silent. Then she saw two bare feet, the legs in pale blue knit pajama pants with navy cuffs, appear on the stairs, descending slowly. She could watch their progress through the open kitchen door into the front hall.

  Finally the entire boy appeared. He had a weirdly narrow head, as if it had been squeezed in a vise. His fuzzy white-blond hair needed a good washing. His eyes had dark purple-gray half circles under them, and his skin had a yellowish pallor. He was as tall as Detective Phillips, or would have been, if he’d stood anything like straight.

  “This is Detective Phillips, Jesse,” said Mrs. Keegin. She talked to him with slightly exaggerated volume and diction, as if to someone hard of hearing, or a little slow. “I’m just going now, I have a tennis lesson, but you give this lady whatever help she needs.”

  “Thank you,” Phillips said.

  “Oh, you are welcome,” said Mrs. Keegin, as if to say, You don’t know the half of it.

  Left alone, Phillips said, “Jesse, I’d like to ask you some questions.”

  * * *

  Hope and Maggie met at Grand Central and boarded the train for Rye-on-Hudson. When they had found two seats together and settled themselves, Maggie showed Hope the address she’d been given.

  “Fifty-three Second Street, Rye-on-Hudson. They don’t go in for names like Gin Lane in these little burgs, do they?”

  “Second Street is the most common street name in America,” said Maggie.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, because the first street is called Mai
n, or Broadway, or something grand like that, but no one worries about what to call the next one.”

  “Where is it? This Second Street,” she said, pointing to the address on the paper.

  “Parallel to Main, behind the Bistro and the bookstore. Can you do a reverse address lookup? My phone is out of juice.”

  Hope could. She got a phone number. “Shall I call it?”

  “Do.”

  Hope dialed, and indicated ringing. Then her eyes met Maggie’s; an answering machine had picked up. She listened, looked surprised, and ended the call.

  “What?”

  “You have reached Kate and Ellen’s house. We can’t come to the phone right now yada yada.”

  “Kate and Ellen? Kate and Ellie Curtin?”

  “Wouldn’t you guess?”

  “Wow,” said Maggie. And after a moment’s thought: “That’s a surprise.” Then added, “Before I forget, tell me about your date with Caroline Hollister.”

  “It took a funny bounce; she brought her brother.”

  “Your boyfriend? Why did she do that? She said he was so boring.”

  “He said he had insisted on crashing. Might be true.”

  “But is he? Boring?”

  “Well he won’t be taking over for Jon Stewart, but I’ve met worse,” Hope said. “He made an interesting remark. Angus thinks Hugo Hollister is supercompetitive about Caroline’s children from the first marriage. As in, his child with Caroline has to be at least as impressive.”

  “Even though she can’t read. If that’s true he may be competitive with Angus too.”

  “Very likely. Which puts him in a position he may be used to, and not in a good way,” Hope said.

  “Meaning?”

  “He comes from a rich family, but his branch of it doesn’t have any money. Now here he is again, in a rich family but none of the money is his.”

  “Do we know that?”

  “No. But you could ask.”

  “I could not,” Maggie said. “Anyway, I like Hugo. Unless he’s making his wife unhappy, then I hate him. Speaking of his wife though, do you think she didn’t want to be alone with you? Sometimes people don’t, if there’s something they don’t want to talk about. Something they don’t want to know or aren’t ready to deal with.”

  “I certainly thought of that.”

  “It’s not important, but if we’re going to protect Lily, we need to know where she feels safe and where she doesn’t. Does Hugo work, do you know?”

  “He’s a private art dealer.”

  “Aha. Now who do we know who will tell us more about that?”

  Hope looked at her watch, and said, “I’m going to time you, to see how long it takes you to come up with someone.”

  “Why? Do I do that all the time?”

  “Remember the time I was on a bus in Tel Aviv, and right in front of me, in the midst of all that Arabic and Hebrew, I heard someone say ‘So how do you know Maggie Detweiler?’”

  There was a silence. Both looked out the window and listened to the rattle of the train. “Anyway, I’ve thought of someone,” said Maggie.

  “Ha! Who is it?”

  “Avis Metcalf. She has a gallery on Madison.”

  “And how do you know her?”

  “I’m not going to tell you if you’re going to make fun of me. So, now that you and Angus have been reunited, are you interested?”

  Hope turned and looked at Maggie. “Listen. If I ever tell you that I’m thinking of taking up with Angus Westphall, so I can spend my summers playing horseshoes with his friends from Groton at our little ‘place’ in the Adirondacks, I want you to promise you’ll shoot me.”

  “But I don’t have a gun.”

  “Use mine. It will be in my sock drawer, top left.”

  * * *

  McCartney Partners, LLC, had its office in White Plains in a fairly new office building within walking distance of The Westchester, an upscale shopping mall where Lyndon could take colleagues to lunch. Their space was small but glossy, with new-looking office furniture, all chrome and glass and dark wood polyurethaned until it looked like something that had never grown in nature. The furniture was rented, but it had been lightly used, and if it came to returning it they should get the whole deposit back, in Margot’s opinion.

  Margot worked in the outer office, and Lyndon had a room beyond hers with a sofa and chairs and a big flat-screen TV that was never used. When they first started out here he had rented a suite with its own conference room, but the rent was too high for the amount of use they got out of it, so.

  “Good morning,” said Margot brightly to the man who came through the door on Wednesday morning. He didn’t look to her as if he’d come to invest in real estate. “How can I help you?”

  “I’d like to speak to Lyndon McCartney, if he’s in. Detective Bark, White Plains Police,” the man said, showing his badge, then handing her a business card.

  Though shocked, Margot didn’t flinch. “I’m Mrs. McCartney,” she said. “My husband’s on the phone, but if you’ll take a seat?”

  Bark took a chair against the wall and folded his hands in his lap. He sat quietly, watching her. Most people found that unnerving.

  Margot pushed a button on her telephone console. “Sorry to interrupt. There’s a detective here to see you.” She disconnected before he could question her.

  She looked at Bark. See? I’m not rattled. Everyone feels guilty about something, but I know you are not here because I called my husband a bastard this morning and the children heard me. I wasn’t wrong, I just should have kept my voice down. Of course this isn’t about me. You’re probably collecting for something. Policemen’s Benevolent. Something.

  Lyndon McCartney’s door opened and he stepped out of his office, hand outstretched. Lyndon the salesman.

  “Lyndon McCartney,” he announced with his bluff smile. “How can I help you?”

  “I have a few questions, if you have a minute,” said Bark, standing.

  “Of course.” Lyndon waved him into the inner office and shut the door behind them. Whatever the hell this was about, he didn’t need it, couldn’t afford it, and for effing sure didn’t want to talk with Margot about it. Maybe the mortgage? Their house was underwater, but Margot didn’t know that. Not that they’d send a detective about that, they’d send a banker. Except they had sent a banker already once . . . Well, whatever it was about, here it was, like a flu you’d tried not to catch, sitting across from him in a badly cut suit.

  Bark had taken out his notebook with some ostentation. “I understand you and Ray Meagher are business partners. Is that right?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “And what is your business, Mr. McCartney?”

  “We are real estate developers.”

  “I see. Developing what, exactly?” What would it be? Office parks? Shopping malls? As if Westchester needed more of those?

  Lyndon opened a drawer and handed Bark a glossy brochure that said hudson estates across the top of the first page. Inside there were a lot of words, and some artists’ renderings of town houses in a grassy sylvan setting. On the back page were a lot of figures. Bark only glanced at it before putting it into his pocket.

  “And what is the nature of your partnership with Ray Meagher?”

  “He’s got the local knowledge,” said Lyndon. “I’m the real estate professional.”

  “And did you know Florence as well?”

  “Of course,” said Lyndon, feeling relieved. Florence, of course. Poor Floro. Of course, this was about Florence, why had he thought . . . He relaxed and felt himself suffused with helpfulness.

  “You were friends as couples?”

  “We were. Well, both our wives worked of course, and we have children and they don’t, which makes a difference, but we socialized.”

  “Dinners at one another’s houses, that kind of thing?”

  “Yes. Some. We have a big picnic in the yard on the Fourth of July and they come to that.”

  “So ho
w often would you see them? In a month?”

  Lyndon looked as if he didn’t know how to answer.

  “I think we—we went to a movie together, I think it was last month; I’ll ask my wife,” and he reached for the phone. Bark forestalled him.

  “That’s all right, I understand. You and Ray saw each other on your own, did you?”

  Lyndon looked relieved. “My wife is a quiet person. She works, and she has the kids, and she’s busy with her own family, they live in Peekskill. Margot’s family is close. And, Florence was such a talker.”

  “I had heard that.”

  “But Ray and I are pretty good buddies.”

  “He says he was with you on Thursday night, the night before Florence’s body was found.”

  “That’s right. We decided to run over to check out the new casino that’s opened in the Poconos.”

  “Just the two of you?”

  Lyndon’s eyes flicked to the door of the outer office.

  “It was just a quick trip. Florence was working, and Margot has the kids. It’s a thing we do, spur of the moment. Margot’s fine with it.”

  It was the second time Lyndon said that his wife had the kids. Bark himself had kids; his wife had been killed by a drunk driver when his girls were ten and twelve.

  “But Florence wasn’t working,” said Bark.

  “I meant, I thought she was.”

  “Ray didn’t tell you his wife had gone off in a snit?”

  Lyndon looked as if he were mentally trying to get a large car into reverse to make a U-turn in too tight a space.

  “I don’t remember, I don’t think I asked. I assumed, I guess.”

  “What was the name of the casino?”

  “Mohegan Sun Pocono. I’m sure Ray told you.”

  “And how long a drive is that?”

  “Not bad. A couple hours.”

  “I see. And you went in Ray’s car?”

  Lyndon snorted. “You ever ridden in a Smart car? They are horrible, those things. Terrible ride.”

  “I take it that’s a no.”

  “We went in my Lexus. Driving it gives Ray a charge.”

  Bark, impassive, made a note on his pad.

  “He drove your car?”

  “He drove down this time; I had some calls to make. I drove back.”