The Guise of Another (16 page)

Michelle led Alexander to a restaurant that served breakfast twenty-four hours a day, and that had few enough customers that they could sit in a booth next to the window and talk without being overheard. Michelle never took her eyes off of the darkening sky outside as she ordered her coffee. When the waitress left, Michelle spoke first.

“I'm not sure where to begin,” she said.

“Begin by telling me how you met Jericho Pope.”

She thought for a moment and said. “I guess that's as good of a place as any.” The waitress brought the coffee and asked for their orders. Neither was hungry, and the waitress left again. Alexander leaned forward in his seat. Michelle gazed into the black mirror of her coffee as if waiting for the words to come to her. Then she spoke.

“In the summer of 2001, I was seventeen years old. My mom had this new boyfriend and, well, he used to flirt with me and try to get me to do stuff with him. He was disgusting. When I told my mom about it, she took his side and accused me of coming on to him. It was a horrible situation. I decided not to go back to school for my senior year, and I moved out. I had this friend—she was a year older than me—named Hillary Wolkochek. She danced at this gentlemen's club and made a lot of money, enough to live in her own apartment. It was a studio, but even a studio in Brooklyn costs a small fortune. I asked her if she could get me a job dancing.”

Michelle looked up from her coffee cup for the first time and smiled a sheepish smile. “I had quite the body back then.” Alexander smiled back. He had no other response, so he sipped his coffee to cover up his silence. Michelle looked away again and continued.

“Well, you can't dance in clubs like that if you're only seventeen, so I talked Hillary into letting me borrow her ID. We looked like we could have been sisters. And of course, I couldn't dance at the same club she did, so I found a job at a place down near Coney Island, not as nice as where Hillary danced, but nice enough. I didn't dance under my real name—no one did. I called myself Ariella Femme. It was a strange time in my life. The customers knew me as Ariella, my boss thought I was Hillary, and my real name was Michelle.”

She smiled again at Alexander, who smiled back, trying to mask his impatience. She must have seen past his façade, because she gave a weak nod and continued. “Then, one day, I was working the afternoon shift and this girl named Aubrey, who also worked there, came to me with a proposition. I knew that Aubrey did the occasional hobbyist on the side.”

“And by ‘hobbyist,’” Alexander interrupted, “you mean…”

“John…trick. Aubrey used to tell me about how much money she made by going out on dates.” Michelle gave air quotes to the word
dates
. “She even tried to hook me up a couple of times. I told her no. But I saw the money she made, and it made me think. So she comes back to the dressing room that day and tells me there's this guy who wants a couple girls to go to his yacht and party. He was willing to shell out two grand apiece. That's a lot of money for one day's work. At first I said no, but Aubrey begged me to go. She said he needed two girls. Finally, I figured, what the hell?”

“What did the guy look like?” Alexander asked.

Michelle considered for a second and said, “I remember that he kind of scared me. He didn't talk except to say a few words here or there…you know…like telling us what he wanted us to do. He had dark hair and black eyes with this cold stare like an eagle. And he had a scar on one of his cheeks.”

“What do you mean when you say that he told you what he wanted?”

“He was kind of specific, especially with Aubrey. He told her that she would be with a man named Richard and that Richard might be reluctant. She should flirt with him and touch him and get him drunk.
He said that we wouldn't get the full two thousand unless she got him to screw her in the salon.”

“And what were your instructions?”

“He just told me to be nice to his friend Wayne and do whatever he asked.”

“And did you?”

Michelle lowered her eyes. “I have a good life here, Detective. Nobody knows anything about my past. I have a husband and two children. Have you come here to destroy all that?”

A sudden gust of wind from the storm shook the awning outside of their window, battering it with a force that startled them both. A trash can rolled across the parking lot, and rain came down in a heavy curtain. The sudden pounding of the rain against the window raised such a din that it prevented them from speaking in the hushed tones they had been. So they waited for the leading edge of the storm to pass them by before they continued.

As he waited, Alexander thought about Michelle's question. Would their conversation destroy her life? If he was right, Jericho had been blackmailing someone for what happened on the
Domuscuta
. She had been getting $50,000 a year for her involvement. The possibility existed that she could be charged with a crime. If Jericho killed James Putnam, she would likely be either a codefendant or a witness. Alexander could see no way to get her through this without her past coming to light. But he decided to give her a nonanswer so that she would continue her story.

“I didn't come here for that,” he said. “I need to know what happened on that yacht.”

Michelle met Alexander's answer with a slump of her shoulders. “We did what they paid us to do. Aubrey flounced and bubbled like she was supposed to. I don't know any man who could have resisted her. She plied Richard with champagne, getting him to drink it off her body. I watched and tried to do the same, but my guy seemed more interested in Aubrey and Richard than in me. I was fine with that because Wayne was a pig of a man. But then Wayne and I left the salon and went to his cabin.”

Michelle twisted her wedding ring around her finger, no longer able to look up as she spoke. “I was terrified. I had never done anything like that before. I mean, I'd had sex plenty of times, but never with some greasy old man…for money. I thought Wayne was going to hurt me. Instead, he stood at the door and watched Richard and Aubrey. It was weird. It was like he needed to make sure that they had sex. Then he closed the door, smiled this truly sick smile, and said, ‘It's our turn.’”

Michelle shuddered as the old memory passed through her. She raised a trembling cup to her lips and took a sip of coffee. “After we were done…after we…well, you know, Wayne became really cold. He ordered me to get dressed. Then the guy with the scar brought Aubrey and me up to the deck and told us to get into the life raft.”

“The dinghy?”

“Yeah, that's what they called it. It's a rubber raft with a motor, right?”

“That's it.”

“The guy with the scar gave us our money and told Jericho to take us back to the pier on Coney Island. That's when I got to know Jericho. I saw him on the yacht earlier, but we never talked until we got in the dinghy. He told me that he lived in Red Hook and worked on that yacht on weekends. And I told him about how I lived in my own apartment above a nail salon in Gravesend. I even told him the street address because I kind of hoped that he would look me up. I thought he was cute.”

Michelle stopped talking for a moment and thought back. “All he knew about me was that I was a prostitute. He didn't know that I'd never done anything like that before. When I got out of the dinghy, we said good-bye, and I watched him disappear into the darkness. I remember feeling ashamed and alone—dirty. I thought I would never see him again. But I was wrong.”

The waitress topped off Michelle's coffee and made a joke about the storm. When she saw Michelle wipe a small tear from her cheek, the waitress stopped talking and went away. The wind had calmed, but the rain continued to fall, thick and cold. After the waitress left, Michelle sipped the fresh coffee, maybe hoping that she wouldn't have to take that next step. Alexander gave her a slight prod. “I take it you did see Jericho again?”

“Later that same morning,” she said in a voice so low Alexander had to lean forward to hear her. “I heard a knock on my door about five a.m. I looked out the peephole, and there's Jericho, his hair all wet, no shirt, looking around as nervous as hell—like some animal being hunted. I open the door, and he tells me that the guy on the boat is trying to kill him—the guy with the scar.”

“Do you remember his name?”

“I'm sorry…I can't.”

“Prather?”

Michelle perked up at the name. “Yes. Prather. He's the guy with the scar.”

“Why did he want to kill Jericho? What happened on that yacht, Michelle?”

Michelle took a deep breath and closed her eyes as she exhaled. Then she continued, her eyes fixed on the rim of her coffee cup, her thoughts reaching back to a faraway memory. “Jericho told me that after he got back to the yacht, Prather sent him to his quarters, but he didn't stay there. Jericho had left the dinghy tied to the side of the yacht instead of using that crane thing to lift it on deck, like he was supposed to. After a while, he heard the dinghy knocking against the side of the
yacht. He went out to the swim deck to make sure that he had secured it properly, and while he was out there, he saw a glow coming from up top.”

“A glow?”

“He didn't know what it was, so he snuck up to the wheelhouse to see and he found a laptop computer connected to a wire that went over the side of the boat and into a window of the salon.”

“Camera?”

Michelle hung her head and nodded. “They recorded us…well, Aubrey, mostly. They wanted it for blackmail. When Jericho found it, the laptop was still recording. He could see into the salon. Wayne and Prather were arguing with Richard. They were trying to talk Richard into doing something illegal. They wanted him to go along with a plan they had, but Richard refused. He said that he was friends with a bunch of congressmen and senators, and he wouldn't screw them over. Jericho thought it had something to do with defense contracts.”

“Were they trying to bribe him or threaten him or…”

“Both. The told him that they could buy a yacht like the
Domuscuta
and could live like kings. When Richard didn't go for that, they…” Michelle let her words trail off as though unable to finish the sentence.

“They threatened to send out the video of him and Aubrey,” Alexander said.

Michelle nodded. “They said that they had video of him fucking a hooker, and they were going to show that to his family and his friends in Washington. They told Richard they were going to ruin him if he didn't go along.”

“I take it Richard didn't go along.”

“No. Jericho said that Richard told them to go fuck themselves and got in Wayne's face. That's when Prather pulled a cord out of his pocket and wrapped it around Richard's neck. They killed Richard.” Michelle's hands shook as she unburdened herself of this dark secret. “He said that Prather tied Richard to some kind of weight and dumped him into the sea.”

“And Jericho captured all this on the computer?”

“On a flash drive.”

When Michelle said those words, it was as if a hole in time had opened up and pulled Alexander back to the day that he first read the accident reports. Officer Percell had written down the last words of the man in the Porsche. “Find it, before they find her.” The “it” was the flash drive and the “her” was Michelle Holla. Pope knew the peril that would follow the flash drive. Men would not hesitate to kill to retrieve such incriminating evidence. Pope also knew that, after his death, Michelle Holla would remain the only witness who could explain how the pieces of the puzzle fit together. A dark thought began to form in Alexander's head.

“Detective, are you okay?” Michelle asked.

Alexander shook his head slightly to brush away his uneasiness. “I'm sorry. It's just that this is a lot to take in. So Pope captured the murder of Richard Ashton on a flash drive?”

“He said he had the whole thing up to the point where they carried Mr. Ashton out of the salon to dump him into the ocean. He said he heard Garland tell Prather to go below and make sure that the crew was still asleep. Jericho peeked down and saw Prather had a gun in his hand.”

“Jericho was still up top?”

“Yeah. So he pulled the flash drive out of the computer and snuck down to the dinghy. Wayne had gone back into the salon, and Prather was checking the captain's quarters. He said he fired up the motor and took off for Coney Island as fast as he could go. When bullets started hitting the dinghy, he tried zigzagging, but it's a rubber raft. He saw that he was going down, so he dove for the water. About that time, a bullet must have hit the gas tank because it blew the dinghy to pieces.”

“And Jericho, being the athlete he was, swam to shore and found you.”

Michelle nodded, and her gaze remained locked on the center of the tabletop as the memory played out in her head. “I was scheduled to work that next day, the afternoon shift again. But after what happened, I couldn't bring myself to go in. Jericho also thought I'd be safer if I stayed home. I called the club, and the manager asked if I heard what happened to Aubrey. Of course I hadn't.” Michelle started to tear up at this memory. She slowed her words down, making sure that the gravity
of the event didn't pass unnoticed. “He told me that they found her in her apartment, dead, a bullet in her head.”

“They were tying up loose ends,” Alexander said half to himself, completely unaware of how cold those words sounded.

“Yes, Detective. They were tying up loose ends. They tracked down the two prostitutes and killed them. But remember, I was using Hillary Wolkochek's ID. When they tied up my loose end, they killed the wrong person. Someone snuck into Hillary's apartment that morning and put a bullet into the back of her head while she slept. I'm responsible for her death.”

Michelle broke into a full sob, using a small napkin to wipe the tears. Alexander waited until Michelle had calmed enough to talk again, then he asked, “Is that where Jericho came up with the idea for getting his new identification?”

Michelle looked up, her eyes red and puffy. “I'm not sure I follow.”

“Jericho killed his roommate and then lived under that man's name. Surely you knew that.”

“You mean James?”

“So you know about James Putnam?”

“Yes, I do,” she said through her sniffles. “But clearly you don't. Jericho didn't kill James. He loved him. They were roommates, yes, but they were closer than most brothers. They met at Pace University. They found each other somehow and discovered that they were both orphans. Jericho lost his parents when he was very young, his mother to cancer and his father to alcohol. I can't remember what happened to James's parents.”

“Car accident.”

“That's right. They shared that past and bonded to each other because of it. After we discovered that Hillary and Aubrey were killed, we were scared to death. Jericho thought that they might go to his and James's apartment, so we called James to warn him. James grabbed some of Jericho's clothes and some money, and we snuck off to this Laundromat that they both knew. That's where I met James. He was a great guy.”

“Was James part of the blackmail scheme?”

Michelle stiffened a bit when Alexander used the word
blackmail
. “No. And neither was I at first. Jericho and I debated about turning the flash drive over to the cops. We argued about it. Jericho didn't want to. He said that we could make money from it. He said I could live in a big house, never have to strip again. I knew it was wrong, but I went along with it.”

“Is that why he brought you fifty thousand dollars every year?”

“That was my cut. I told him a few years ago…after I got married, that I didn't want it anymore, but he insisted. My husband thinks the money is from a trust fund. He's not a very sophisticated man, but he's sweet.”

“How did Jericho come to take over James's identity then?”

“That came about as a sad coincidence. Jericho hid out for a couple weeks in my apartment, rarely leaving. We were running low on money, and Jericho asked James to empty out Jericho's bank account and bring it to the Laundromat. When James showed up, he was wearing his best suit and tie. He could only stay a little while because he had a job interview. He was so excited…” Michelle smiled a melancholy smile at the memory. “We agreed to meet at my place after his interview, but James never came back.”

“Why not?”

“His interview was on the ninety-eighth floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center at eight thirty a.m. on September 11th, 2001.”

Alexander sat back in his seat and let the last few pieces of the puzzle shift and move until the picture became clear. “James died on 9/11. But no one knew he was in the tower.”

“No one, except me and Jericho,” Michelle said. “He had no family except a brother in prison. No one knew he was dead. There was no body to identify. He just vanished into the dust.”

“So Jericho stole his identity.”

“I think a better way to say it is that Jericho assumed James's identity. It wasn't easy for Jericho to do that. We thought about it long and hard. We waited, hoping that by some miracle James made it out alive.
Finally, Jericho went over to his old apartment. We were so scared that they were still watching the place. But Jericho slipped in and came back with a small, metal box with all of James's stuff in it, his birth certificate, school ID, Social Security card, everything he needed to become James.”

“Who wrote the letter to James's brother?”

“Jericho wrote it, but I signed it. We both practiced his signature, but mine was spot-on.”

“And you two headed for the Midwest.”

“We came here, to Des Moines, first. We lived in a motel for a month until I turned eighteen. He set me up with a bank account, an apartment, and a driver's license. When he left, he never said where he was going. I thought I'd never see him again. Then, just after Thanksgiving, he contacts me and says he wants to meet. We came here to this restaurant.” She pointed to a corner booth a couple feet away. “We sat at that booth there, and he gave me a box—told me not to ask any questions.”

“You didn't need to ask any questions, though. You knew that it was blackmail money.”

“Am I in trouble?”

“I'm not concerned with your…gifts as long as I can bring this to an end. I need to bring down the men who killed Aubrey and Hillary and Richard Ashton. I need to know where that flash drive is.”

“I swear I don't know. I'd tell you if I did. I don't want anything to do with this anymore.”

“Did Jericho ever say anything…anything at all that might help me find it?”

Michelle shook her head. “No, not a thing. I didn't even know that he was in Minneapolis. He would always block his number when he called. He said I'd be safer if I didn't know anything.”

“I have a friend in New York, a detective, who will want to talk to you. They've reopened the investigation into the death of Richard Ashton. I suspect they will go back and look into Aubrey's murder, and Hillary's, now that we know the connection.”

“Reopen the investigation. You can't do that. I'm safe because they
think I'm dead.” She looked at Alexander, her eyes imploring him. “I have children. If anyone learns that Jericho was living in Minneapolis, they'll know where to look. They'll find me and my family the same way you did. You can't tell them about Jericho. You can't let them know.”

Alexander thought about the meeting Billie had with Wayne Garland, a meeting where Jericho's resurrection would have been mentioned. He rubbed the back of his hand across his lip, looked at Michelle, and said, “I think they already know.”