On my way back to the Hampton Inn, I called ahead for a pulled pork sandwich and an order of fried pickles from the Bull and Bear Road House, then carried it back to my room. I filled the bathtub with hot water, dumped in the entire bottle of complimentary shampoo and, using my hand, whipped up a few desultory bubbles. No one was there to tell me not to, so I ate my dinner in the tub, thinking what an improvement warm bath water was over paper napkins when barbeque sauce dribbles on your chest.
After the last of the ranch dip that came with the pickles had been rinsed from my fingers, I closed my eyes and tried to relax, but my mind was a kaleidoscope of facts, whirling, shifting, ricocheting off one another and vying for my attention. I must have drifted off, because when I opened my eyes again, the water had grown cold. I climbed out of the tub, wrapped myself in a towel and crawled into bed with the TV remote in my hand.
Sixty cable television channels, and still nothing worth watching.
I tossed the remote aside, grabbed the bedside notepad and started scribbling. Before long, I had filled three pages with facts. If I were Hercule Poirot, what would they tell me? I was probably too exhausted to think straight, but one thing was clear, there were broken links in the chain. Trusting that my foggy brain would clear by morning, I turned out the light and eventually fell asleep.
The following morning, well before seven, I appeared in the lobby intending to take full advantage of their complimentary breakfast. I grabbed a cup of coffee and used it to reserve one of the small tables for two nearest the lobby, then went off to forage at the breakfast bar. I prepared a do-it-yourself waffle and smothered it with several strips of bacon and some cut-up fruit instead of whatever was in the little tub masquerading as maple syrup. Thus fortified, I sat down, ate, and got to work.
Consulting the business card he had given me, I placed a call to David Reingold’s cell.
He picked up right away.
‘I hope I didn’t wake you,’ I apologized.
‘No, no. I’ve been stuck on the beltway staring at the Mormon Temple for the past twenty minutes. You?’
‘I’m up in Syracuse, tracking down Elizabeth Stefano’s family.’
‘Yeah?’ he said.
‘You want to know what’s astonishing, Mr Reingold? All of them tell me they’ve never been contacted by the police. Doesn’t that seem odd to you?’
Instead of answering, Reingold grunted.
‘You haven’t contacted them either. Is everything being swept under the rug, like Trish feared when she entrusted me with her flash drive?’
‘Relax, Mrs Ives. Ever since you left my office, I’ve been working on the story and believe me, something very much is going on.’ A horn honked and Reingold softly swore before continuing. ‘Surely you understand that when a case involves big names, as this one does, the DA keeps a tight lid on it. Needs to be airtight. Bulletproof. Same goes for me.’
‘Do your sources tell you who shot Patricia Young?’ I asked. ‘Just yes or no.’
‘No. But I can tell you that the information Mrs Young provided really greased the wheels. When the DA is ready to issue arrest warrants, the case is going to explode.’
‘Warrants? There’ll be more than one?’
After a moment of silence, Reingold sidestepped my question. ‘You said you’re in Syracuse, talking to family. Anything you’d like to share with me?’
Was there? I paused, apparently for longer than I thought.
‘Mrs Ives? You still there?’
‘I’m pondering your question,’ I said.
‘It should go without saying that I protect my sources.’ Was it my imagination, or was there a hint of eagerness in his voice?
‘I’m still thinking,’ I said as I considered what remained of my breakfast – two soggy squares of cantaloupe I had no intention of eating.
‘This traffic is going nowhere fast, so apparently I have all the time in the world,’ he said, gently prodding.
I shoved my plate aside, a decision made. ‘OK. The person you’ll need to talk to is Mary Goodrich, a high school friend of Elizabeth Stefano’s. I’ll get back to Mary in a minute. I also spoke to two other family members. Their shock at learning that Liz is still alive was genuine, I think. They seem fragile to me, so I’d give them a little space until they get used to the idea that Liz has risen from the dead.’
I shared Mary’s contact information with Reingold and asked him not to get in touch with her until I’d had the chance to give her a head’s up. Then I brought him up to date as succinctly as possible. ‘This is what I’ve pieced together so far. When they were fourteen, Mary and Liz ran off to New York City together. Mary confirms what Trish told me about living at the Y and working in a deli. But what Trish didn’t get a chance to tell me was that she and Mary were recruited by a woman to hand out hors d’oeuvres at a party hosted by Calvin Bishop at his townhouse on Clinton Street in Brooklyn. I checked Zillow and the house hasn’t changed hands since 1991 when Bishop bought it, so I presume he still owns the place.’
Reingold snorted. ‘In addition to a ranch in Wyoming, a townhouse in Old Town Alexandria and an island in the Bahamas so close to the one owned by Johnny Depp that they can probably toast one another across their infinity pools.’
‘Must be nice,’ I muttered cattily. ‘Anyway,’ I rattled on, ‘before long, Mary’s father drags his daughter home. A couple of months after that, Liz Stefano shows up back in Syracuse, great with child. Fifteen. Years. Old. She’s not saying who the baby’s father is. Eventually, Liz ditches the kid and hightails it back to New York, leaving her mother to raise her little girl. Nobody seems clear about what happened after that. Liz might have been working for a caterer, or as an au pair, or for a talent agency. She either was, or was not, attending school. But what we do know is that four years later she’s fled New York City for Syracuse carrying the documents that are represented by the images you have on that flash drive. She leaves the documents with Mary, telling her it’s an insurance policy. And the next thing everybody knows, she’s killed herself by jumping off a bridge.’
I paused to draw breath before moving on. ‘Now, I have only a general idea of what’s on that flash drive, and I’m not asking for any special favors. I don’t consider myself your confidential informant when it comes to that flash drive. It belonged to Trish, not to me. I was just the delivery girl. But I’m wondering if you could check the documents for some names and get back to me.’
‘Shoot,’ Reingold said, sounding agreeable.
‘Calvin Bishop is my prime suspect, of course. He was running the Lynx television station in New York at that time. Mary remembers the caterer who recruited them being named Siobhan’ – I spelled the name out for him – ‘but I don’t have a last name. And then there’s Nathaniel Flannigan.’
‘Shit. Congressman Flannigan?’
‘One and the same. Are you still stuck in traffic?’
‘Inching along. Why do you ask?’
‘If you were moving, I’d want you to pull over before I tell you the next bit of news.’
‘I was imbedded with the troops in Afghanistan. I think I can handle it.’
‘One of the women I talked to was Liz’s daughter. She ran her DNA test through the matching service at GenTree. Turns out Nathaniel Flannigan is her biological father.’
Reingold whistled. ‘Does Flannigan know?’
‘She says not. But here’s the thing. Flannigan was no pimply teen back then. I looked the guy up on Wikipedia. Flannigan was born in 1962. In 1992, when Liz got pregnant, he would have been thirty.’ I let that fact hang in the air between us.
‘Damn,’ he said.
‘So, naturally I’m sitting in an upstate New York motel drawing Jeffrey Epstein comparisons here. Does Flannigan know Bishop? Was Bishop in the habit of entertaining well-connected businessmen and politicians who like to party with underage girls? Is he still doing it?’ I paused. ‘Is there anything in those documents Trish provided that would support such a crazy theory?’
Reingold cleared his throat. ‘That and more, Mrs Ives. Let’s leave it at that.’