Not Even Past (24 page)

She opened the web browser on her computer again, brought up the UNJ website, and typed Luca’s name into the employee search. Nothing. Kate tapped her nose for a minute.

She tried the Ben Franklin College site next. Again, nothing. Kate exhaled and gave herself a moment to think. Marie’s drunken ramblings had laid the pieces out there. Kate just needed to put them together.

Friday was the merger press conference. Kate googled that. The first lesson of law school, the first lesson her father gave when he hired her: Google is your friend. It was paying off these past few weeks.

There were several articles about the merger and the press conference. Most of them were about Senator Stern or the protests against the merger. There was one regarding the actual itinerary for Friday.

She scrolled through it. And then she decided it would be better to talk to someone at Ben Franklin College.

There was still a chance to save Jackson and bring him back to earth.

J
EANNE PUT
her arms around William and started to turn back toward the hotel, but not before he saw Martin. He started to wave.

“Hey!” he shouted. “We’re going swimming.”

Jeanne shot him a look but relented.

Martin ambled up the way and opened the gate to the pool. By the time he got to them, William had already jumped in. Jeanne told him to stay in the shallow end, which elicited a groan, then some splashing and a giggle.

Martin sat in one of the vinyl chairs and waited. Jeanne joined him, brushed the hair out of her face, and said, “You found me.”

“Way to state the obvious. Took three weeks.”

“They didn’t find me, though.”

Martin shook his head.

“Unless you brought them.”

Martin shook his head again. “I’m not sure how hard they’re looking.”

Jeanne cocked her head in his direction, then glanced at William. He was at the very edge of the shallow end, his back to them, staring off into the deep end. The sun reflected off the water into his eyes, so Martin turned back to Jeanne. He shouldn’t have left his sunglasses in the car, but he was always misplacing them otherwise.

“Why wouldn’t they be looking for me?”

Martin shrugged. “I’m not a cop anymore.”

Jeanne started to say something, but he held up his hand.

“That said, I still found you. It took three weeks, but I tracked you down.” Martin scratched his wrist. “Now imagine someone with the power of a state senator, with ties to people everywhere. He either knows where you are and doesn’t care, or doesn’t need to look.”

A vehicle rumbled into the parking lot, and Jeanne visibly tensed. Her back went straight, and she quickly turned to look into the lot. Martin looked over his shoulder. It was a Coca-Cola delivery truck.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “As soon as I came back, they captured me. I went to confront him, in his office, and the next thing I knew—”

Martin smiled. “You went to confront him at his office. Why? Why now?”

“No, Bill.” She looked at her watch, then at William. “Ten more minutes, buddy.”

“Mom … you’re busy. Twenty more.” He disappeared under the water and then popped back up. A six-year-old with no fear and no swimmies; not bad, Bakers.

“Nine. More. Minutes.”

Another groan, then again under the water.

“Did you tell him yet?” Martin leaned forward.

“You’re not staying with us, so no. In fact, I think it’s time you leave.” Jeanne rubbed the corner of her eye. “I don’t want to hurt him anymore than he’s already been hurt. I don’t want to confuse him.”

“So you’re just going to keep secrets the rest of your life.”

The Coca-Cola guy opened the rear of the truck and started to pile boxes on to a hand truck. After each box, he tapped buttons on a scanner. No clipboard. Martin looked back at Jeanne.

“I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s going on. Jackson is dead. Henry Stern or whoever clearly doesn’t even think you’re a threat anymore. Might as well just tell me. If it’s a problem, I can take care of it. And then you can go back to a normal life.”

“Why are you bothering, Bill?”

Martin ran through all the answers he could give, as if there was a Rolodex in his head. Ninety-nine percent of the answers weren’t even true anymore. He picked the one that was.

“Because it’s all I have left,” he said. “No job. You’re supposed to be dead, and at the very least you’re off the grid. I have coffee and a crossword puzzle each day. That’s it. I need to know what’s going on here. Whatever it is cost me my job. It cost me you.” He looked out at William. “And it cost me him.”

“Bill …”

He raised his hand again. “Humor me. Please. This has gone on too long. Maybe we can still stop it.”

Jeanne took another look at William. It was as if the kid had no idea they were even there. He’d submerge in the water, touch the bottom of the pool, and pop back up again. Then he’d swim over to the wall and kick off of it, leaving a small wake behind him.

“Henry Stern is about to become the most powerful man in the state.”

“More than the governor? I find that hard to believe.”

Jeanne said, “If you want me to tell it, you have to listen. Please don’t interrupt. Six years ago, I got put on a project with Stern. Back when we were both at Rutgers. We looked into public ed versus vouchers. If private schools were better. It was around the time that movement was really starting to gain some footing. The research we did was important for the state. At least I felt that way.”

Martin wanted to tell her that he remembered, but didn’t interrupt.

“What we found was typical: There wasn’t much difference between charters, private, or public school test scores. Charters and privates could kick the underachieving kids out and kind of goose their statistics, but that was about it. But Henry didn’t take that really well. He thought for sure private schools, charter schools—for-profit schools—were the answer.”

“Did that report ever get out?” Martin said before he remembered to shut up.

Jeanne shook her head. “It did, but I had to leak it to blogs and Internet sites. Never got to the mainstream press. Some education blogs picked it up, but no one really cared. Stern tried to bury the report. Got very, very nervous about it. Wouldn’t tell me why. It was weird. Once we started to get the data and see the end of our research, he started to have panic attacks. He wanted to bury the report. Find other information, other research.

“One night, about a week before we were going to go live, Stern got a phone call as we were wrapping things up. He left the room to answer it. When he came back in, he was all pale. He excused himself and said he’d see me tomorrow. It wasn’t like him. So I decided to follow him. He drove up to Jersey City and met with Tony Verderese.”

Tony Verderese, head of the New Jersey mob. He tried to make a run at New York too, and nearly blew up the
Intrepid
because of it. And that play killed him.

“So you came back now? Now that the mob is basically gone in New Jersey?” Martin asked.

“Is it gone, Bill? Really gone?”

“Not really my department, but from everything I’ve heard—since Verderese died, the mafia stuff has calmed down. The FBI is thinking of saving some money and transferring it over into counterterrorism.”

“And who do you think has the kind of influence to make that happen?”

Martin didn’t say anything.

“Henry Stern was a big-time gambler. Sports, card games. I used to see him talking to the math professors trying to come up with a way to count cards. To them it was a goof, they laughed when he asked them. But you should have seen him storm out of the room when they wouldn’t answer him.”

“So he owed Verderese money?”

Jeanne nodded. “Big time. The next day, I confronted him on it. His only reaction? He told me I was dead. That I couldn’t stop him.”

“And that’s when you came to see me. When you told me about William?”

She nodded again, then looked toward the boy. Now he was floating on his back. Piece of cake. Bill Martin still couldn’t do that.

“And then I was gone. It didn’t take much planning. It had to be quick. My parents knew people.”

“They told me.”

“I’m so sorry, Bill.”

“So am I.”

Martin neck burned hot and his muscles tensed. Twice he opened his mouth to say something but stopped. It didn’t go unnoticed.

“Say it.” Jeanne folded her hands.

“I could have helped you.”

She looked up at the sky. “I was young. I was scared. I was pregnant. They would have killed you and me. They would have killed Jackson. I knew who Stern was tied up with. And I knew he wanted to make a run at state senate.”

“How? If he was in such debt, how could he bankroll that?”

Martin took a deep breath and remembered the campaign. First the Rutgers merger, then promising to support public school teachers in the state. But Stern also ran on saving taxes, cutting property taxes. Bringing New Jersey back from the brink of bankruptcy. He played both sides of the political fence, and people ate it up. He won by a landslide.

“They did. He’s their puppet, Bill.”

“What was the first thing he did in office?”

“Open a series of charter schools. Who was in charge of them?”

“No idea.”

“Some of Tony Verderese’s guys. They ran money through them. He paid off his debt.”

Martin didn’t say anything.

“For-profit schools used to money launder for the mob.”

“And nobody looked into this?”

“People
loved
what he was doing. Why look into a good thing?”

His next move was to support the governor’s attack on public pensions. He got it through the senate. And taxpayers applauded. Then he worked on the Rutgers merger. Six years of fighting, and he finally got it through. And that’s when, with little pushback, he brought up the new merger.

“What made you come back, Jeanne?”

“Think about it. Tony Verderese died. Days later, Stern announced the UNJ merger. Turning the school private.”

Martin shrugged.

“Think what you can do with all the money. The donations, the scholarships. Football. Basketball. A college, if run correctly, is a ball of cash.”

“Rutgers isn’t. Rutgers is deep in debt.”

“If they think they can make UNJ private, they think they can make a profit. And now that Verderese is dead, who is stepping up to make this work?”

“You think he’s making a run to fill the hole?”

“I don’t know, Bill. He probably has friends. He’s a puppet. Has been since he left the army.” Jeanne checked her watch. Time for William to get out. “I just know he can make a lot of money with this. Hidden money. Laundered money. It worked at the lower levels. Why can’t it work here?”

“It didn’t happen when he got elected.”

“People would have noticed then. He had to garner more goodwill.”

Martin shook his head. “The information you have. It’s six years old. It’s not going to stop him now.”

“I don’t care if it does.” Jeanne set her jaw and stared over Martin’s shoulder.

Martin shook his head. “Mob ties? Gambling debts? It’s old news. He’s already in office.”

“Not my problem anymore.”

Martin took a deep breath. “He punished you. Tied you up. Beat you up. He would have kept you there.”

“I shouldn’t have gone to talk to him, but I couldn’t resist. I thought it was over. He won. So I wanted to show him up.”

Martin shook his head. “You fell in their lap. And he panicked.”

“Friday’s the big day. The merger will be announced. I guarantee at least three mob guys will be on the new board of governors. To keep an eye on the money.”

Martin shook his head. “It won’t happen,” he said.

“Let it go, Bill. He won.”

Martin rubbed his face. “I can stop him.”

W
HEN
M
ARTIN
didn’t show up to his apartment after an hour, Donne had to move.

As he turned the wheel to pull into traffic, a needle stabbed through his left shoulder down into his fingertips. Physical therapy was still in order, but it had healed enough to move. That’s why they let him go. He was functional and could serve his purpose.

Luca said it best, the day before he left. “Thank god you’re a righty.”