Reconstructing Amelia (15 page)

“Body shots?”

“Come on, dude, you’re not that old.” Duncan rolled his eyes. “Facebook just wasn’t around back when you were letting the good times roll.”

“How long will this all take?”

Duncan looked at the clock. “Couple hours, max. I’ll shoot you a text when I have everything.”

Kate was on her way up to her office when her cell phone rang. It came up as a blocked number. She paused in a quiet stretch of hallway off the elevator bank, feeling queasy as she answered.

“Hello?”

“This is Lieutenant Lewis Thompson with the Seventy-eighth Precinct.” The voice had the same thick Brooklyn twang as Molina’s but was extremely careful and polite. “Is this Ms. Kate Baron?”

“Yes?”

“I’ve been assigned your daughter’s case and—”

“What happened to Detective Molina?” Kate asked, then immediately wished she hadn’t. It wasn’t as though she wanted Molina back. She would take this Lieutenant Thompson person, whoever he was. She would take anybody over Molina.

“He’s not with the department anymore.”

“He got fired?” It was one thing to suspect Molina was incompetent, but to be
that
right would have been almost frightening.

“Voluntary departure. Took a job in private security. His last day was yesterday.”

“Oh, I see,” Kate said, even though she did not see. She did not see at all. He’d called her only the day before.

“But we got the results of the handwriting analysis—”

“Wait, you did one?”

“This case got kicked back to me based on the results.”

“How could they test the handwriting if they didn’t even have a sample from Amelia?”

Kate was already bracing to be told that the
sorry
written on that wall was definitively her daughter’s. And she was done accepting at face value that the police were doing their job with the proper thoroughness.

“They did have a sample from your daughter, or at least from somebody. I’ve got it right here in my hand. It’s a note directed to a Jeremy, thanking him for providing a reference. It’s signed ‘Amelia.’ That ring any bells?”

Jeremy, of course. Amelia had sent him a thank-you note for writing her a recommendation to Princeton’s summer journalism program. Jeremy was an alumnus, and when he’d heard that Amelia was applying, he’d generously offered to support her application to the prestigious program for high-school students without Kate’s even having to ask. Apparently, Jeremy had done more than just call the police commissioner, he’d pushed the handwriting analysis through.

“If you think there’s a chance this note isn’t your daughter’s,” the lieutenant went on, “let’s run the test again with a sample you provide. I want to be one hundred percent sure we get it right this time.”

“So the handwriting matches?” Kate asked, still preparing for the bad news. “Amelia wrote ‘sorry’ on that wall?”

“Can you answer my question first, ma’am?” Lieutenant Thompson asked, not impatiently, exactly, but firm. “Is that note from your daughter?”

“Yes, it’s from Amelia.”

“Then it looks like whoever wrote on that wall, it wasn’t your daughter.”

“The handwriting’s not Amelia’s?”

“Not even close.”

Kate raced back to her office to grab her things and let Beatrice know that she’d be out for the rest of the day. She’d told Lieutenant Thompson that she’d meet him out in Park Slope, at Dizzy’s, in an hour. And she had a stop to make before she headed out.

She darted down the internal stairs two flights, then around the corner to Jeremy’s huge office. When she jerked to a stop at his open door, he had his chair swiveled in the opposite direction, probably to hide the fact that he was reading the sports section of the
New York Post
.

Jeremy startled when Kate knocked.

“I just wanted to say thank you,” she said as he turned around. “For speaking to the police commissioner and for arranging the handwriting analysis. It’s amazing that you kept that note.”

“It was a nice note,” he said. “Was the handwriting a match?”

Kate shook her head. “No.”

“Really?” Jeremy looked stunned. “Wow.”

“I know. I didn’t think Amelia wrote it, but to get confirmation . . . It’s still shocking. Anyway, they’ve assigned somebody new to the case, too. I’m on my way out to meet him.”

“I’m glad to hear they’re taking the whole thing seriously,” Jeremy said. “Maybe now you can get some real answers.”

“I hope so,” Kate said, staring at him. She thought for a second about saying something more, but she already knew that she wouldn’t. “Anyway, thanks for your help.”

“Absolutely. If there’s anything else I can do, please let me know,” Jeremy said. “Will you keep me posted, too? Let me know what you find out?”

“Definitely,” Kate said as she turned for the door.

“Oh, and one last thing,” Jeremy called after her. “I know this isn’t on your radar right now—and it shouldn’t be—but I wanted to let you know that I’ve pulled Daniel off Associated. You’ll be the only partner on the case when you’re back. No rush at all. I mean it. Between the senior associates and me, we’ll be fine whenever you come back. But it was something I needed to move forward with. Daniel made a lucky call on the subpoena, and he wrote a good brief for the Second Circuit. It’ll go down as a win in his column, but you’ve logged six years on that case. It’s yours, and it should stay yours. I may work you all to death, but I believe in loyalty. It should count for something. That’s a message the other junior partners in the firm need to hear. When you come back I’m going to pull out, too.”

Jeremy was the senior partner on virtually every major litigation matter the firm had. Directly or indirectly, he’d brought in most of those clients, so they remained his, even if he didn’t do any of the work. It was a ceremonial thing as well as a billable thing.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, it’s your case—the billables, the profit, the client.” Jeremy had an eager look on his face, like he was bestowing a precious gift on Kate, one that he had labored over with his own hands. “It’ll be like you brought them in yourself. Victor’s fully on board, too. In fact, he seemed delighted to see me go.”

Kate had heard rumors of Jeremy “giving cases” to partners over the years, cases that then went on to define the future of their careers. Having an enormous client like Associated Mutual Bank considered
hers
would do just that for Kate. It was the kind of opportunity she would have relished before Amelia died. Now it made her feel vaguely sick. But she didn’t want to disappoint Jeremy. He was trying to help her in the only way he knew how: by pushing her career ahead.

“Thank you,” Kate said, because she was supposed to, and because she meant it. “For everything you’ve done.”

Dizzy’s was mostly empty when Kate stepped inside. She looked over the worn red booths and hodgepodge of eclectic pictures on the walls until she finally spotted a slight man in his mid-sixties with curly gray hair seated at the far back. He had on a suit jacket and tie, and he was talking to a cute waitress with a nose ring and a red bandana tied around her head. Kate watched as he said something else and the waitress tipped her head back and laughed hard. Finally, Kate moved toward his table. He was the only person seated alone. Though he hardly looked the part, Kate figured he must be Lieutenant Lewis Thompson.

“Lieutenant Thompson?” Kate asked tentatively, once she’d made her way over to him.

“You can call me Lew, as in Lewis.” He held out his hand. Up close he was even smaller, with pale blue eyes behind thin, wire-rimmed glasses. “Have a seat.”

“I’m sorry that I’m late,” Kate said, trying not to feel defeated by the way he looked. But it was hard to imagine him chasing after bad guys, much less catching one of them.

The lieutenant looked past Kate and motioned for the waitress. “You know what you want to eat? Sorry, I couldn’t wait.”

He motioned to his food: fruit, a vegetable omelet, whole-wheat toast. Even his meal was not coplike. Then again, it wasn’t as if Molina, the seemingly quintessential cop, had gotten her anywhere.

“What can I get you, hon?” the waitress asked Lew, who in turn pointed to Kate.

“Just coffee is fine,” she said, even though she was actually hungry.

“You sure?” Lew asked, once the waitress had disappeared. “Nothing is more important than eating right.”

“What department did you say you were from?” Kate asked, afraid that he might say something like traffic enforcement. “I think you said it on the phone, but I missed it.”

“Seventy-eighth Precinct, Homicide,” he said, taking another careful bite.

“Homicide?”

“Homicide, as in a dead body,” he said, reading Kate’s mind. “I don’t have any new evidence on your daughter’s case yet, apart from the handwriting analysis. I’m here to listen, not to talk. So, why don’t you tell me why you think your daughter didn’t kill herself.”

Over two cups of coffee, Kate talked. She talked about the kind of student and daughter Amelia had been. She talked about not believing Amelia would cheat. Not believing that she’d killed herself. All the while, Kate kept telling herself that it wasn’t just her denial talking, that it wasn’t just that she couldn’t live with the thought that her child had taken her own life. But a tiny part of her was afraid that her denial was the reason she was sitting there, across from this small lieutenant. But she pressed on, describing the mystery boy whom Kelsey had seen and all those little “I hate you” notes. And she told Lieutenant Thompson about the texts she’d gotten, three of them now.

“So what’s the secret this person thinks you have?”

“I have no idea,” Kate said, over that little voice inside her screaming
Maybe I do! Maybe I do!
“Honestly, I don’t.”

“And you have no idea who might be sending the texts.”

Kate shook her head. “I had the IT Department at my firm check it. The texts came from the same phone company site, but that’s all they could tell me. They’re also going to pull all the text messages and e-mails off Amelia’s phone and laptop. I’m not sure Molina went through all of that the first time.” Kate resisted the urge to say that Molina had outright lied, but there didn’t seem any harm in hinting at as much. “He said he did, but he didn’t have the password to her phone, so I don’t know how he could have. He missed those little notes in Amelia’s room, too.”

“Hmm. Okay, we’ll get our guys on the texts. They’re not the fastest, but they might be able to get some more specifics. We can subpoena the phone company, too. But they’re not exactly lighting quick either,” Lew said. “I did go back through your daughter’s file, though.”

“And?”

“It’s maybe a little thin.”

“Maybe?”

“Listen, a decent cop doing a decent job can look a lot of different ways. There’s a range.” He measured the distance with his hands. “But in a case like this, you would expect more witness interviews, more detailed notes. There were some of each, but probably not enough, and then there’s the autopsy report.”

Kate had never seen the report. She hadn’t asked, and it hadn’t been offered.

“What about it?”

“First off, it wasn’t in the investigation file,” he said. “I went into Manhattan to track down a copy, and all they had at the main OCME office were the photographs. I’m no expert at analyzing autopsy photos, but there’s at least one thing that doesn’t seem to go with someone falling on purpose.”

This was it, what Kate had wanted: real proof that Amelia hadn’t killed herself. And yet, suddenly, she felt panicked.

“What do you mean?”

“There were scratches on Amelia’s forearms, long ones. Like maybe they were put there with someone’s fingernails.” He paused when Kate winced. “Are you sure you want to hear this? This level of detail probably isn’t necessary.”

“I want to know,” she said, trying to get herself to breathe. “I have to. Keep going.”

“The body positioning, too. It doesn’t rule out suicide, the way, say, landing far out from the building might. But it raises questions. Questions someone should have gotten answers to.”

“Can we call Molina and ask?”

“I already did.” Lew rearranged his knife and fork so that they lined up straight on either side of his plate. “At the moment, he’s apparently unreachable, out on a fishing boat somewhere in the Florida Keys. He’s not due back for another week.”

“Did you say he’s going to be a
security
guard?” Kate asked, because that sounded like someone being demoted, not someone who’d have the money to take a big fishing trip.

“Not like an eight-bucks-an-hour security guard at Best Buy or something. He’s working at Carmon Industries, corporate security. They hire cops, FBI, that kind of thing. From what I hear, it’s a plum deal, if you like that sort of thing.”

“Doesn’t this all seem awfully convenient? The missing autopsy report, Molina’s leaving the police force right as I start asking questions.”

“The timing’s off, no question.”

“Off?” Kate asked. Now she was getting irritated. Was he seriously going to be as oblivious as Molina. “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say, that it’s off?”

Lew took one last sip of coffee and nodded. “For now.”

“So we’re just going to sit here and wait for Molina to get back from vacation?” It came out even louder and angrier than Kate had intended.

She could feel the waitress and a busboy turn in her direction. Kate didn’t care. She’d had enough. She’d been pushed off, quieted down, and disregarded once. She’d been made to accept something she did not believe. She wasn’t going to sit there and let it happen again.

“No,” Lew said calmly. He stood and carefully flattened several dollars, placing them under the salt and pepper shakers. “We’re going to start again at ground zero, retrace Molina’s steps. Cut a new trail where we have to. You’re daughter is dead, and we’ve got the word ‘sorry’ written on a wall near where it happened by somebody other than her. We’ve got some questionable medical findings and an anonymous message that says she didn’t kill herself. That’s more than enough for me to reopen the investigation.”

“Oh,” Kate said, feeling relieved and a little spooked that there had been some threshold they’d hurdled over without her even realizing there’d been one to cross. “Okay, good.”