The Ex (18 page)

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“If you’re afraid of discussing the escort business—”

She stepped onto the porch and shut the door behind her. “Of course I’m afraid. I’m twenty-nine years old and have two children and can barely afford the rent for the roof over our head. I can’t believe greedy Emin sold me out. He’s the one who found me at an audition and told me this was an easy way to make money on the side. No one was supposed to know. Fine, I guess my secret’s out. But I have no idea what you’re talking about with some stupid picnic basket.”

“We have surveillance footage,” I said, locking eyes with her. “We don’t have any interest in exposing anything about your life. In fact, there was nothing illegal about this particular job. Someone hired you to sit on the waterfront—dressed to the nines, reading a book, waiting for a man who’d be jogging by. He’s in trouble now. You’re the only one who can help us understand what really happened. We need to know who hired you.”

“I don’t know how many times I can say this: whatever you’re talking about has nothing to do with me.”

“Emin confirmed you were hired for the entire night,” Charlotte insisted. “June fifth.”

“I remember that night. I was at a hotel on Central Park South, if you must know.”

“What hotel?” I asked.

“Essex House, okay? That’s all I can tell you. I’m sorry, maybe there’s some other woman who looks like me. Now, please, go. I don’t want my boys to hear any of this.”

She closed the door once more, this time for good. Charlotte started to knock again, but I shook my head, knowing it was futile.

I had looked up Sharon Lawson the actress online. She had minor guest roles on a number of television shows filmed in New York:
Gossip Girl, Law & Order, The Good Wife
. Last year, she starred in an off-Broadway play. But New York was no longer a city where artists could pay the bills with a side job waiting tables, especially if the artist had two extra little mouths to feed. On the other hand, I noticed she’d been wearing hundred-dollar yoga pants on the porch and had what appeared to be a relatively new Lexus SUV in her driveway. Maybe she only told herself the money was for her children.

I pulled out my phone to snap a picture of her license plate. It was a long shot, but we could check parking garages near both Essex House and the waterfront to figure out where she’d been before Jack’s missed moment.

My phone vibrated in my hand before I had a chance to take the picture. It was a reporter from
Eyewitness News
named Jan Myers. She said she was calling for a comment on Jack’s case.

“We’re under a gag order,” I said. “You know that.”

“Well, I’m not, so I always give every party the opportunity, regardless.”

“What’s there to comment on anyway? Max Neeley’s interviews? Of course it’s understandable that a shooting victim’s son would be looking for quick answers.”

“Ah, I guess the prosecutors haven’t told you yet. Sorry to be the one with bad news.”

It was far worse than bad.

A homeless man named Francis Thomas had arrived at the Downtown Men’s Center during this morning’s downpour, a shopping cart full of possessions in tow: clothing, cans and bottles, books, a soggy picnic basket. Inside the picnic basket was a Glock .45—the same kind of gun used in the waterfront shootings.

C
HARLOTTE DOUBLE-TAPPED THE
horn of her Porsche, but I remained planted in Sharon Lawson’s driveway, trying to convince Jan Myers to sit on the story.

I was having such a hard time controlling the tone of my voice that I couldn’t even process the information Jan had given me. According to this Francis Thomas person, he found the basket “by the water” on the same day Malcolm Neeley was shot, though he wasn’t sure where. If he even noticed the gun inside, he wasn’t able to explain that to the police.

“I can promise you a good exclusive down the road, Jan.”

“
Down the road?”

“You know I’m good for it.” Even as I was trying to negotiate this one reporter’s silence, I was thinking through the possibilities. If Jack was framed, whoever did it knew he was bringing a picnic basket. Jack claimed to have left it just outside the football field. The shooter could have dropped it inside. The theory still worked.

Nevertheless, the basket’s discovery was a game changer. Until
now, arguing that Jack was framed was just one of many potential options for our defense. There were far safer bets. I had a good chance of getting the GSR evidence suppressed as the fruits of an illegal arrest. Without the GSR, the prosecution was toast. But even if I got the GSR evidence suppressed, the discovery of the murder weapon in a picnic basket that I had a feeling would look just like the one Jack was carrying before the shooting meant that our only option was to argue that he was framed.

“Sorry, no can do,” Jan said. “Besides, the word’s out. I’m not the only one who’s got the story.”

“Supposedly we have a gag order.” As I paced behind Sharon Lawson’s Lexus SUV, I noticed the curtains part on the aspiring actress’s front window. Something about her was bothering me, but I had to deal with Jan first. “Who’s your source? Just a hint: the police or the DA?”

“I was only calling for a comment, Olivia.”

“Is it Max Neeley?” I didn’t really think Scott Temple would intentionally leak information, but as a victim’s family member, Max could very well be getting inside information from the police. “Did it ever dawn on any of these reporters he’s courting to ask him why he pushed his father’s will into probate only two days after he died?”

There was a long pause at the other end of the line. “You’re always interesting to talk to, Ms. Randall. Sounds like you’d have a lot to tell me if you weren’t so damn ethical.”

I hit End and then snapped a picture of Sharon Lawson’s license plate. The frame around the plate was one of those freebies from the dealer, a place called New York Universal Auto World, which, according to the print on the bottom half of this rickety piece of plastic, catered to “good people, bad credit.”

When I looked back at Sharon Lawson’s house, the curtains were closed. I had no idea if she was a good person or not, but I was certain she knew more than she was letting on.

CHARLOTTE TURNED THE STEREO VOLUME
from stadium blast down to regular-person loud when I got into the car. “You know she’s lying, right?”

I reached over and hit the Power button. “I need to figure out how to prove it.”

For the next ten minutes, I did my best to block out Charlotte’s chatter about all her plans—more money for Emin to wear a wire, blanketing the waterfront with minions armed with photographs in search of witnesses, bribing or blackmailing Sharon for the truth.

She was right: we needed Sharon to come clean. Even if she didn’t know who hired her, we’d finally have a narrative: dream woman in the grass, missed-moment post, the “meet me at the football field” e-mail, the shooting. Beginning, middle, and end. It was a complicated, fascinating story—the kind that jurors love. How many times had I heard jurors say after an acquittal that the defendant’s version sounded too bizarre to make up? “Did you notice that?” Charlotte was saying.

“Huh?” I had tuned her out.

“I said she looked like you. Sharon-slash-Helen. She looked like a younger, thinner, hotter you.”

“Love you, too, Charlotte.”

“No, I’m serious. Kind of interesting that Jack’s dream woman looks like you, not Molly.”

“And the other day, you said Tracy Frankel looked like a younger, more strung-out me. I’m pretty sure you think every straight girl with black hair looks like some version of me.”

But as I listened to her continue to rail about her certainty that Sharon Lawson was lying, I leaned back in my seat, closed my eyes, and pictured myself barefoot, drinking champagne on the waterfront at the crack of dawn, flirting with some nice-looking, harmless jogger. His dream woman did seem more like me than Molly.

By the time I returned to Jack’s apartment, I was exhausted. As soon as Jack saw my face, he said, “I’m afraid to ask.”

As I delivered the news about Sharon Lawson, Jack fell into the sofa and stared up at the ceiling. I launched into my usual spiel—all the time left before trial, we were only just beginning to investigate, etcetera—but Jack cut me off.

“I gave a writing class at a prison a few years ago. One of the inmates wrote an essay about why, after fifteen years of maintaining his innocence, he planned on telling the parole board how remorseful he was about his crimes. Turns out you don’t get parole if you don’t accept responsibility, so if he needed to be contrite for something he never did, that’s what he was going to do. He said to me,
In is in, and out is out. I just want to be out.
I want this to be over, Olivia. I can’t go to prison. I was only in jail for a few days, and I thought I was losing my mind again. I won’t be able to make it. Promise me you’ll do whatever you can to help me.”

“Of course,” I said quietly. This conversation wasn’t making it easy to break the other piece of news. I told him about the call from Jan Myers with
Eyewitness News
. When I mentioned the gun inside the picnic basket, his eyes flickered with confusion.

“They’re waiting for ballistics,” I said.

“That’s insane. How is that possible?”

I walked him through the explanation I’d been selling to myself since the reporter’s phone call. Madeline’s e-mails had instructed Jack to bring the picnic basket to their meet-up. For all we knew, the shooter had been expecting Jack to stick around longer than he had. Maybe the plan was to shoot Neeley and then shoot Jack, too, making it look like a murder-suicide. But when the downpour started, Jack had left. The shooter may have figured it was now or never. When he left, he saw Jack’s picnic basket and slipped the gun inside.

As I laid out my theory for Jack, I realized what had been bothering me about Sharon Lawson. Charlotte had told Sharon that we knew about the gig at the waterfront with the champagne and the basket. But when Sharon denied being the woman in the video, she said she knew nothing about a “stupid
picnic
basket.”

Were there other kinds of baskets? Maybe not, but it seemed like a strange detail for her to add. Or maybe I was grasping at straws.

As I left Jack’s building, I pulled out my cell phone and looked at the most recent photograph: a snapshot of Sharon Lawson’s license plate, complete with the name of her car dealer. I called information and asked for the phone number for New York Universal Auto World.

And then I got really, really lucky.

AT EXACTLY NINE O’CLOCK THE
next night, my cell phone rang. It was the doorman; Helen was coming up. I had no idea what Sharon Lawson’s skills were as a hooker, but so far she earned five stars for promptness.

I rose from the sofa and straightened Don’s tie on instinct.

Einer swatted my hands away. “Jesus, Olivia, he’s a grown-ass man talking to a prostitute, not some kid going to the prom.”

Don pulled the tie off and threw it on the coffee table. “I’m not even a real john, and you two still have me feeling like a letchy old man. Are you sure we couldn’t have figured out some other way?”

I was sure. Charlotte and I had spooked Sharon when we’d shown up at her house unannounced. She’d never answer her door for us a second time. I reassured Don that we weren’t doing anything wrong: We were paying her more than her going rate for sex in exchange for a simple conversation. We had already agreed that we wouldn’t stop her from leaving, not physically at least. And all three of us were here to witness the interaction, just in case she was tempted to level any false allegations against us.

Einer and I ducked into my kitchen. We couldn’t see Sharon-slash-Helen but could hear the conversation in the living room clearly. The initial introductions were as innocuous as a housecleaning visit: Hi, I’m Helen. I’m Don. How are you doing tonight? I’m fine, how are you? And then things got X-rated quickly.

“I think you know how I’m doing,” she said. “I’m horny. Isn’t that why you asked me here?”

I would have thought that a thousand dollar a night whore would bring hotter dialogue than a late-night Skinemax flick, but poor Don was clearly mortified. “Um, actually—I think we should talk for a little while.”

“Yeah? Is that what you like? Talk? What do you want me to talk about?”

I heard steps and a thud, then couldn’t resist any longer. I had to peek. Don was scurrying across my sofa while Helen tried to straddle him.

“You know what I like?” Don asked, standing up and folding his hands protectively in front of his nether regions. “I like cars.”

“Yeah, baby?” Helen was twirling her long brown hair, kicking one leg back and forth flirtatiously. “What kinds of things do you like to do when you’re behind the wheel?”

“I don’t like driving cars as much as knowing about them. Or the business of them.” Don was no longer acting like an embarrassed gentleman. “Like the kind of business that would sell cars to good people with bad credit. The kind of place that would call itself New York Universal Auto World. The type of business, Sharon, that would lease a luxury SUV to a single mother of two with no steady documented source of income only on the condition that she have a GPS installed in case the car needed to be repo’d.”

She started backing up toward the door. “How do you know my name? What do you know about my kids?” Her face fell when I stepped from the kitchen. “How many times do I have to say it? I don’t know anything.”

“You told me you were at the Essex House for that all-night date I asked about. But your car dealer’s GPS tracker says otherwise. You were at the Quik Park on Bleecker and Washington.” It was the closest discount lot to Christopher Street Pier. “You arrived just before six
thirty in the morning and left a little after seven, not long after a man named Jack Harris completed his usual loop around the pier.”

“I don’t want anything to do with this.”

“It’s too late for that, Sharon. You can either talk to us now, or I can issue a subpoena to the escort service.” No, I couldn’t subpoena the escort service, but hookers and actresses don’t know that. “If you cooperate with us, I can at least try to keep the fact of your side gigs as quiet as possible. How someone found you for the job doesn’t matter. What we need to know is how you wound up at the pier that morning. Who hired you?”

“I have no idea. It was all by e-mail. The guy said it was a prank he wanted to play on a coworker. I didn’t ask any questions. He told me to wear something fancy. The basket was there waiting for me. I was supposed to read a book. When the guy ran past me, I was supposed to look interested—a little flirty.” She slumped down into my sofa and ran her fingers through her hair. “And that’s all I know, I promise.”

Einer stepped from the kitchen, but I shot him a look that sent him ducking back out of sight. I didn’t want to scare Sharon off again. “You said
the guy
hired you. What do you know about him?”

“Nothing. I mean, I guess I don’t even know it was a guy. It was all by e-mail. They left cash in the basket for me—enough to cover the whole night—under a bench a little south of the pier.” I already knew that cameras didn’t cover that spot, and we hadn’t seen anyone carrying a picnic basket in any of the footage. “I wasn’t happy about the arrangement but I figured I could check easily enough when I arrived and leave if it didn’t pan out. I got paid two grand for an hour’s work.”

“And you really thought that was someone’s version of a practical joke?”

“Do you know the kind of dough weird people have in this city? I have a friend who got paid ten thousand dollars to clean some dude’s condo in her underwear. It’s like Monopoly money for perverts.”

“What about after the shooting?”

“Why do you think I was so freaked out when you came to my house? Right after I heard about the shooting, I was thinking, wow, I was just there a couple of weeks ago—you know? But then when I read about the shooter carrying a picnic basket, I e-mailed the person who hired me, like: what the fuck’s going on? All I got back was an error message saying the account was closed. I don’t know anything else, and I’m terrified.”

“What was the e-mail account?”

She fumbled through her black patent leather clutch purse and pulled out an iPhone. The e-mail address she read aloud was the same one Madeline had used to tell Jack to meet at the waterfront the morning of the shooting.