Authors: Alafair Burke
R
amona had phoned the detective because it was what you were supposed to do. Police were supposed to help people. Plus, these were the police who had interviewed her about Julia’s death. They knew her. They would be better than the random cops dispatched by 911.
The female detective—Hatcher was her name—had gotten to the apartment quickly enough. She even had documents showing the locations of the computers that had been used to post the threats on her mother’s website. It was almost overkill when she unfolded the Manhattan map on their living room coffee table.
“The threats prior to today came from different locations. The first was made from Julia’s computer, connected to the network at her home. Since then, the posts have come from various public locations in Manhattan—primarily downtown, like the Union Square Equinox, an Apple Store—but also a couple on the Upper West Side . . . here at Seventy-second Street and Broadway.” She circled the locations on the map with a highlighter.
“Okay,” she said. It was a dumb response, but Ramona had no idea how she was supposed to confirm that she understood.
“Now, here’s the interesting thing about this morning’s post,” the detective said. “We were able to get hold of the company that hosts your stepmother’s website. The comment that was made this morning came from a public computer in the lobby of a hotel at Madison and Seventy-second.”
She made yet another mark on the Upper East Side of the map.
“That hotel’s only about eight blocks from here. You said your stepmother’s out on a run?”
“Stop saying ‘stepmother.’ She’s my
mother
. And you can’t possibly think she has something to do with this.”
“You told us before there was no way Julia would do anything to hurt your step—your mother. But what if she thought she was helping her? You said the two of them were close. If your mother had asked Julia to write that post while your family was out in East Hampton—”
“My mom would not do something like that. I told you before that Julia had been distracted. She was busy all the time. And she wasn’t telling me where she was or who she was with. Maybe it was whatever guy she was hooking up with. He could have used her computer.” Ramona couldn’t tell if the detective was even paying attention anymore, but she couldn’t make the words stop pouring from her mouth. “And he’s still posting those ugly words now. You have to find whoever’s doing this. You have to help my mom. And let Casey go. I’m telling you—these threats
have
to be the key to Julia’s murder. What if they come after my mom, too?”
Ramona had been so busy yelling that she hadn’t heard the front door of the apartment open. All she knew was that Adrienne—her stepmother, her mother, the woman who had taken on the responsibility of raising Ramona when she was only five years old—was standing in the foyer, still out of breath from her early-morning run in the park. Ramona could tell from her expression she was scared.
“What is going on here? What are you saying to my daughter?” Ramona must have looked afraid too, because she understood now that her mother’s fear was on Ramona’s behalf, not her own.
Ramona rushed to her and wrapped her arms around her waist. “I tried to call you. You always leave without your cell phone. What’s the point of having it if you don’t carry it with you?”
“Are you okay, sweetie?”
Ramona grabbed her tighter. “I’m worried about you, Mom. It’s your website. There’s a new threat today. And this time the guy used your name. Whoever’s doing this to you knows who you are, Mom.”
Ramona saw a different kind of fear in her mother’s face. Then her mother bent down and kissed her on the top of the head before patting her on the back. “Go on to your room. I want to talk to Detective Hatcher alone.”
“W
hat the hell is going on here?” Adrienne demanded. “I walk into my own home and find my kid terrified in her living room with a cop standing over her?”
“If your kid looked scared, it was because she’s terrified about those comments you’re pretending to ignore on your website. A new one was posted this morning. And this time, the person used your name. I apologize if you thought I was the one scaring her, but she
is
scared. She’s scared for you. And she called me to help.”
The previous two times Ellie had seen Adrienne Langston, she had been unflappably composed. Now she seemed genuinely worried.
Ellie pointed to the map that was open on the coffee table and explained the tracking information they had gathered from Social Circle.
“As you can see, today’s post was made from a different location than the previous comments.”
“I don’t understand, Detective. Aren’t you looking into Julia’s death? Why are you even bothering with this?”
“We have one of Ramona’s friends—Casey Heinz—in custody as a person of interest. But because Julia was connected to at least one of these prior posts, a defense attorney for anyone we might eventually charge in her death will make an issue of them.”
“I told you before that there’s no way Julia would have done something like that.”
“You don’t seem very worried about the fact that someone is threatening you, Mrs. Langston. You haven’t even asked for details about this new post.” Ellie had always found it odd that Adrienne hadn’t simply erased the grotesque comments that had been posted on her blog. She’d given her all that mumbo jumbo about wearing the signs of her victimhood proudly, but she never mentioned that traffic to her blog shot through the roof after the threats started. There was also the rumor Katherine Whitmire had passed along, that Adrienne had apparently scored herself a significant book deal. And from the very beginning, Adrienne seemed entirely too certain that Julia could not have been the person writing the anonymous comments, suggesting she might have known the author’s identity all along.
“I told you before that if some crackpot wants to live it up with meaningless comments, I’m not going to let it get to me. I walk in and see my kid getting bullied by a cop, and I’m worried about her.” She wiped away a tear that was beginning to form at the inside corner of her right eye. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m yelling. I’m scared, but not for myself. I’m scared for Ramona. Her best friend is dead, and we don’t even know if someone killed her. What if they come after my daughter?”
“There’s no reason to believe Ramona’s in any jeopardy. You’re the one who’s being threatened.”
“It’s just a bunch of stupid words.”
“Except your daughter’s right. It’s more than meaningless words now. Whoever did this seems to know your identity. They used your name.” Ellie read the comment verbatim from her phone screen.
“Blog by ‘Anonymous’? Yeah, right. I know who you are, Adrienne. Stop writing your drivel or die.
Not just words. That’s an explicit threat. We’ve been told, Mrs. Langston, that your blog has earned you a contract to write a memoir? Is that true?”
“What does that have to do with
any
of this?”
“I asked you a question.”
“You’ve asked an awful lot of questions, Detective. Did it ever dawn on you that you don’t necessarily have a right to know every single thing about my family?”
“If it’s true you have a book deal, these threats on your website could make for excellent publicity. Is that why you don’t erase them?”
Adrienne shook her head. “If you must know, Detective, I do have a book deal. And I earned it. And I signed it before these threats even started. Check with my editor if you’d like. Janet Martin at Waterton Press. You know, first you show up here not sure whether Julia’s death was a suicide or murder. Now you say you have some friend of Ramona who is a ‘person of interest,’ whatever that means. And you’re asking questions about stupid threats that were supposedly made by Julia but continued even past her death. You’re ruining everything. My website was anonymous for a reason. Even the book is to be published under a pseudonym. I wanted to help people by writing about what happened to me, but I never wanted Ramona to know.” She blew air up toward her eyes, obviously frustrated by the onset of tears. “I don’t want her to know things that might scare her. Ramona’s just a little girl in so many ways. This is scaring her. Julia being gone scares her. Your being here scares her.”
As they were leaving the apartment, Ellie spotted Ramona watching her from the apartment’s back hallway. Her lips were moving silently, first subtly and then with more urgency. It took Ellie a few attempts to make out the words she was mouthing:
You have to do something. Help her. Help Casey.
Outside the Langstons’ building, Ellie was still replaying the episode mentally. She kept coming back to Adrienne’s confident assurance: I earned it. Ellie had thought she’d finally figured out who was responsible for the threats on Adrienne’s website, but her theory fell apart if Adrienne had signed the contract for her book prior to the first threat. She was just about to call the publisher to confirm the timing of the book deal when her phone rang.
“This is Hatcher.”
“Detective, this is Janet Martin at Waterton Press. Can you please explain to me why the NYPD is trying to silence an abuse victim?”
As Ellie drove away in the Crown Vic, she did not notice the man standing on the corner at Park Avenue, staring up toward the twenty-first floor. He had arrived at the Port Authority Bus Terminal at 6:30 that morning on a Greyhound Bus from Buffalo with nothing but his gym bag.
W
aterton Press was located in the Flatiron Building, a triangular structure marking the juncture of Broadway and Fifth Avenue. Considered a skyscraper when erected in 1902, the historic building was now dwarfed by nearby condo towers. Size wasn’t everything, however. Waterton’s offices were only midway up the building’s modest height, but Ellie still felt herself marveling at the unencumbered views of Madison Square Park from the editor in chief’s windows, right at the northern tip of the triangle.
“Janet Martin,” the editor said, standing behind her desk to offer a surprisingly firm handshake. “Thank you for heading right over. Well, aren’t you the best-looking police detective I’ve ever laid eyes on?”
Ellie didn’t enjoy pretty-for-a-cop comments, seeing them as insults to other female police officers rather than compliments to her. But she needed Janet Martin to like her. “Actually, I’ll let you in on a little secret. We get an extra stipend for appearance-related expenditures. A few highlights, a wee bit of Botox . . . It’s all part of the mayor’s new plan to revamp the department.”
“Oh, and funny, too. Gorgeous and funny.”
“That’s very nice of you. And I’m sorry again that we got off on the wrong foot. I know Adrienne has concerns about maintaining her anonymity, but I certainly didn’t do anything to dissuade her from writing about her experiences.” Ellie had already primed this pump when Martin had called her in a huff, but she figured a little extra obsequiousness couldn’t hurt.
With a single hand wave, Martin let her know it was all bygones. “I should’ve known it was Adrienne being Adrienne—blowing things out of proportion. I’ve never met an author so afraid of success. Hey, I bet you have fabulous stories about catching the bad guys, saving the good guys, and doing it all in your Jimmy Choos. Ever thought of writing a book?”
“One pair of Jimmy Choos would eclipse my entire shoe budget, and the only writing I have time for is police reports,” Ellie said, taking a seat in one of the guest chairs.
“You adorable girl. You wouldn’t actually have to write it. That’s how we do it these days, haven’t you heard? Snooki’s a
New York Times
best seller. A witty girl like you? I could sell TV rights tomorrow.”
“Thank you very much, Miss Martin, but the only book I’m interested in right now is Adrienne’s.”
“Now
she’s
a real writer, doing it all herself. Such a doll. And she’s got a fantastic story. And now defending herself against this crazy stalker?”
“That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about. Did you sign a book contract with Adrienne before or after these threats started?”
“Before. My niece—she’s also a survivor—was following the blog and forwarded it to me as a possible book project. I signed the deal with Adrienne three weeks ago. Paid more than I wanted to, frankly, but, like I said, she’s that rare reluctant author. Not like she needs the dough, either.”
“But I’m right that the threats will only help in terms of book publicity?”
“I’m upping the print run to a quarter million copies. The only problem now is that this little shit has Adrienne terrified. She called me today trying to return her advance. She wants to pull out of the deal. I even offered her more money, but, like I said, she doesn’t need it.”
“I don’t suppose you have any theories about who the little shit might be.”
“Who knows why these kinds of crackpots do what they do? And just in case you’re thinking it’s me, take a look through our catalog. Even a quarter million print run won’t make this a lead title for me. I bought Adrienne’s book because I think it will help a lot of women.”
“To be honest, one of my colleagues suggested Adrienne might be doing this herself.” Always better to let a nonexistent
colleague
be the bad guy.
“I’d bet every dollar I have against it. I’ve been in publishing thirty-two years, and I’ve worked with authors concerned about privacy. We’ve published under pseudonyms. Forgone the tours and the interviews.”
“Doesn’t that hurt the book?” Ellie asked.
“Are you kidding? It makes the writer’s story all that more interesting. The mystery becomes the marketing hook. Who
is
she? Who are the people she’s writing about? So, you know, we’ll tell the reader we’ve got to change some names and dates and cities and details, and then the author gets to remain anonymous. But I’ve never seen anyone quite like Adrienne. So skittish. I’ve lost count of the number of times she’s threatened to pull the plug. When I told her about the fact-checking, I thought her head was going to explode.”
“Fact-checking?”
“Haven’t you heard? That ‘Million Little Pieces of Bullshit’ has us all investigating our own writers. We can always tell readers that we’ve changed details to protect anonymity, but we have to know the heart of the story is true. When Adrienne found out we’d be verifying the underlying narrative, she even insisted on a nondisclosure clause in the contract. The only reason I’m talking to you is she told me you already know about the book. The woman’s gonna drive me nuts by the time this thing comes out.”
“She told me she doesn’t want the past to bleed into the present.”
“Whatever. I’ve read enough of her work to get a feel for that husband of hers. Don’t get me wrong: it’s part of what makes her journey so sellable. Upper East Side wife and mother, all prep schools and high society. People eat that WASPy shit up. But if I had to guess, I’d say her husband finds this whole thing a bit too messy for his taste.”
Ellie had to hand it to the woman: she had good instincts. But if Janet Martin’s instincts about Adrienne were right, then Ellie’s were necessarily wrong. Whoever was stalking Adrienne was still out there.