Butterfield Institute - 01 - The Halo Effect (14 page)

We walked through the empty space, sending the assembled pigeons flying.

“There’s a third scenario,” I said. “Last night the detective who has been working on the Magdalene murders came to see me.”

I watched Nina’s face harden into an angry mask. Before she had a chance to say anything, I spoke. “This has nothing to do with what had happened with Sam. This is about a beautiful young woman.”

Nina was shaking her head. “You think that’s what’s bothering
me? C’mon Morgan. You know why I’m upset. This is about ethics. I understand how worried you are about your patient. But there is a clear line here, and you know you can’t cross it.” She squinted. But the sun wasn’t in her eyes. She was looking at me hard. “You aren’t considering talking to the police about your patient, are you?”

“Of course not. I’d never do that unless I knew she was in danger and I had information that could save her.” My voice was tight.

“Do you have any information?”

There was a sudden fluttering of wings as a flock of pigeons settled on the stage of the amphitheater and began hunting for crumbs of food.

I explained that Cleo had given me a copy of the book and that I’d been reading it. “No. I don’t have any real information. Only that her boyfriend was right to be worried about her publishing it. Her clients are powerful and wealthy men who’ve trusted her with their …idiosyncrasies. Not one of them is going to be happy about this memoir. Even if she does disguise them.”

A group of kids Dulcie’s age came roaring down the aisle on bikes, hollering and listening to their voices echo off the bandshell.

“Does she name the men in the book?”

“No. Well, not quite. She goes into enough detail about several of the men she sees on a regular basis for me to guess who they are. But she doesn’t name them.”

“Is it incendiary?”

“If you knew who they were, for sure it would be. She talks about what they want from her…some of it sad, some dark. All of it potentially explosive. The question I keep asking myself is what if one of these men she’s written about knows that she is about to reveal his secrets? He’d worry she would leave in just enough detail so that someone close to this guy might
recognize him. That could make someone desperate. And if that’s true, if I keep Cleo’s book and don’t turn it in, I could be preventing the police from finding her.”

“Not so fast. You don’t even know she’s in danger. And you don’t know that any of her clients know about the book.”

“Right. But I can’t just sit on the book and not do anything, either.”

“You have to. You understand that, don’t you, Morgan?”

I nodded.

We started walking back, taking a different route, one that led us past the Bethesda Fountain. A film crew was shooting and large trucks obstructed the view of the bronze statue.

“Nina, what if I’m the only—”

“You can’t solve everything, Morgan. You have to stop trying.”

I kicked at a fallen branch in my way. Took a step. Kicked it another few feet. “What if I tried to meet the men in the book and—”

“How would you figure out who they are?”

“Gil Howard—that’s Cleo’s partner and the guy who owns the Club—might be willing to help me. There are a lot of men in the book who have a lot to lose.”

Nina stopped, not saying anything right away. It was almost as if she was waiting for everything to line up in some order in her mind. “What would meeting them do? How would that help you figure out what happened to her?
If
anything has happened to her.”

We started up a small incline, past a playground on one side and a meadow on the other.

“I could assess them.”

Nina was shaking her head now. “No.”

“I have to do something.”

“Morgan, what if she just went away to get some space from her boyfriend? Or to get plastic surgery? Or she had
some kind of psychotic break? What if you met the men, suspected one and then were to tell the police enough about him for them to figure out who he was, and what if the police exposed him and then it turned out your client wasn’t in any danger at all?” She shook her head again. “Not only would you have jeopardized Cleo’s business and her clients’ privacy, but you could also lead to her getting arrested. After all, prostitution is illegal. I know we aren’t supposed to make judgments and I’m not making one now, but you are dealing with someone who is breaking the law every single day. And if you give the police any information, you are giving them a key to arresting her.”

“Arresting her? But she might be in danger.”

A sly smile crossed Nina’s lips. “You sure? You really sure? I’m not. Do you remember what they did to Sam? They acted as if they were investigating some poor girl who was in trouble, but they weren’t. They were laying a trap for Sam. What if they’re laying a trap again? The police know about Cleo and her business. They have been watching her and waiting for just one slipup. And now they have a very convenient situation to play with. The boyfriend has told them she’s missing. Since when does the NYPD do anything about missing people? Thousands go missing in this city every single week. Without any sign that she was kidnapped or taken against her will, believe me, they do not investigate a case like this. What if they are using the serial murder to fool you into helping them nail Cleo? It could be just another sting.”

The kids, having made one huge circle, were back again and shouting too loudly for us to talk over them.

“That’s impossible,” I finally said. “You are mixing up your past with this present. That’s not what this is about. Not this detective.”

“You don’t think the police can be that duplicitous? You think that some detective you have never met before would
hesitate to use you? Give me one shred of one reason that a woman like Cleo would allow herself to get taken in by a serial killer who meets with hookers in midpriced hotels? From everything you said, her clientele is about a hundred steps up the social ladder from that.”

Nina was right about that. I couldn’t see Cleo making that kind of mistake. Especially since she had been forewarned. But what if the man committing this crime was someone she already knew? What if he had relationships with several different kinds of prostitutes in the city?

“I understand what you are afraid of Nina, but Detective Jordain isn’t lying to me.”

“I know that for some reason you want to believe that, but you can’t be sure.”

“I am.”

“Just because you have that damn Geiger counter in your head that can measure bullshit doesn’t mean you can’t ever be wrong. People act all the time. And some of them are very good at it. Why can’t the detective just be an excellent actor?”

I didn’t have an answer.

But I knew he wasn’t.

W
hen I got back to the office, there was a message from Elias Beecher, and we made plans to meet at the end of the day for coffee in the bar of the Mark Hotel a few blocks from my office. When I arrived, he was waiting for me in the reception area.

He was medium height, extremely thin, with high cheekbones, a sharp jawline and haunted dark brown eyes. Even though I’d never met him before, he looked tired. So tired, he might be ill.

“Mr. Beecher.” I held out my hand.

His was strong, so strong I felt my fingers pinch.

He motioned to the maître d’, who led us to a corner table.

“Thank you for meeting me here,” Elias said as soon as we were seated.

“No problem.”

“My client is staying here and I have back-to-back meetings
in just a little while, but I wanted to see you before…” he started to explain.

“It’s okay,” I assured him.

“I need you to help me.”

“I will. I’ll do everything I can.”

“I’m going crazy. No one will listen to me.”

“I’ll listen to you.”

He played with the small china vase of flowers in the middle of the table. “I’m going crazy and I just don’t know who else to speak to.”

His pain and distress were palpable.

The waiter arrived and hovered.

“I’ll just have coffee,” Elias said. “Espresso.” Then he looked at me. “I’m sorry, that was rude. I’m not thinking. What would you like?”

“I’ll have an iced tea,” I said to the waiter, who gave a slight nod and walked away. He was barely out of earshot when Elias started talking again.

“None of this makes any sense. It’s a nightmare that just keeps growing.” He was playing with the vase again. “And the police won’t do anything. In good faith, I went to them and asked for help. Begged them to start looking for Cleo. I even took them to her apartment. I told them everything I knew, and what did they do? They turned around and questioned me. Treated me as if I’m the lead suspect even before they know if there has been a crime. They need to concentrate on Cleo. Not on me. They need to start looking for her. What good can I do them?”

“And you don’t think they will look for her?”

“I don’t know. I don’t have much confidence in the NYPD. But more important, I can’t wait for them. I have to do something now.”

“That is completely understandable.”

“So help me.”

“How?”

“Talk to me about Cleo. Tell me what you know about her and the men who were her clients. Of course she never told me that much about them. I didn’t want to know. I’m sure you can understand that. But maybe one of the men she worked with had it in for her. Because of the book. You know about the book, right?”

“I do.”

“Have you read it?”

“Even if I had, I couldn’t tell you that.”

He shook his head, violently. “You don’t understand, Cleo told me everything. We are in love. She trusts me. I know she gave you a copy. I am just asking you if you read it.”

Was he telling me the truth? Or was he fishing? There was no way for me to know. I was going to have to gamble on him. But I wasn’t ready to do that yet.

But how or when would I be, and by then would it be too late?

The waiter was back with our orders and neither of us said anything until he had put the drinks down.

“I have a copy of the book,” Elias said.

How did he get a copy? I wondered. Had Cleo given it to him after she gave one to me? I was fairly certain she had told me that I was the only person she wanted to read it at this stage. But Elias had keys to her apartment—he must, for he said he’d taken the police there. Maybe he found her copy and took it.

“You have a copy?” I asked as innocuously as I could, hoping he’d elaborate.

“I brought some of it with me. The pages that have to do with her clients. Read about them from a psychiatrist’s point of view. And you tell me if you think I’m right—that one of these men might have a reason to harm Cleo. The point is, almost all of them might wish she was dead if they know about
the book. But that doesn’t mean shit. Wishing and having the ability to act are opposite sides of the moon. I know a lot of people who think things but can’t carry them out. It’s action that makes heroes. Or villains. You understand that, don’t you? It’s doing something that matters. It’s too easy to sit it out and let someone else worry about it. I’m not like that. You’re not.”

He looked at me, straight into my eyes. His were bloodshot. And sad. Only Cleo, who’d known him before, knew how his eyes looked when they weren’t so damn sad.

“You’re not too scared to help, are you?” he asked. “I know. I can tell. You will. We’re in this together. We’re both worried about her. We were both her caretakers. We have to save her. You’ll help me save her, won’t you? That’s what you were doing before someone took her away. Saving her. And she was so grateful to you for that.”

T
hat night after Dulcie went to bed, I went into the kitchen. If I was going to help Elias figure out who might have had a reason to hurt Cleo, I was going to have to really study Cleo’s book, and to do that I was going to need help staying up. The strongest stimulant I’d indulge in was coffee. While I waited for the water in the kettle to boil, I measured out six tablespoons of espresso and poured them into the French press.

My kitchen was testament to my fantasy of being one of those women who could do it all. It looked like something you’d see in an issue of
Martha Stewart Living
. Stainless-steel stove with six burners, plus a double oven, a state-of-the-art refrigerator and dishwasher, also fronted in the same brushed silver. The countertops were black granite. The cabinets were glass and showed off two different sets of dishes and glasses—everyday thick white stoneware and an indulgent set of Limoges. Underneath the counters were more cabinets, but these were painted a glossy black to match the black-and-white-tiled
floor. You would think I knew how to cook. You would think I baked pies and knew how to ice a cake and squeeze butter-cream rosettes out of a pastry bag. You might imagine huge turkeys, golden-brown and still tender, coming out of those ovens and being carved with one of the German knives from the butcher block sitting on the countertop. And the stuffing would be oyster-and-chestnut and the gravy would be homemade.

But I was only a dreamer in my own apartment. I wanted to bake and sew and cover walls with photographs hanging from grosgrain ribbons. I yearned to set the table with handpainted napkins and create centerpieces inspired by Japanese simplicity. But I was a fraud.

The water boiled and I poured it over the ground beans that I did not grind at home but bought at Starbucks. Fitting the filter into the glass beaker, I sat down at the marble-topped table on one of the French bistro chairs and waited for the muddy mess to brew.

My apartment was indicative of what happens when you grow up with a mother who feeds you TV dinners or canned soup and steals you away in the middle of the night and takes you on a road trip to hell and then dies before she ever makes it back home.

When I was eight, my father came and rescued me from the two-room walk-up on Avenue A, bringing me home to his luxurious apartment on East End Avenue in Manhattan. I’d only been a few miles away, but he hadn’t known it. He blamed himself for not finding me sooner. For not keeping me safer. But it wasn’t his fault. My mother took me when he wasn’t watching. She didn’t register me for school for that year we were gone. She didn’t ever venture uptown.