“Most family members respond with denial,” Walt said. “Even when presented with undeniable evidence. There are killers on death row whose mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers believe are innocent. They believe this despite the guy’s own confession. Despite the guy’s remorse. Family members have an impossible time imagining their loved ones as killers. So I have no doubt that Victoria Ford’s sister believes she’s innocent. But a review of the case will prove otherwise. In the end, evidence doesn’t care about your feelings.”
Avery was tempted to mention the recording she had heard of Victoria Ford pleading for Emma to clear her name after she realized her fate in the North Tower. Avery believed the earnest tone to Victoria’s appeal would be a worthy adversary if pitted against even the most overwhelming evidence. If not in an actual courtroom, then at least in the court of public opinion. And that arena was all Avery cared about as she considered the Victoria Ford project and how it pertained to American Events.
There would be a time to share the recording on Emma Kind’s answering machine. There would be time to develop the narrative of the story she hoped to tell. But Avery needed information first. She was on the hunt for material, foraging for the long winter—the metaphor she and her team used to describe the process of building a story. Gather all the information you can find and then pare it down to the essentials. She was uncertain exactly what that story would look like, if it would work, and whether Walt Jenkins would play a significant role in building the story or be the wrecking ball that toppled it. Until she knew, Avery would keep Emma Kind’s answering machine to herself.
“Let’s start there,” Avery said. “With the evidence. I’d love to review the case with you so you can show me where that evidence led you.”
“It led me straight to Victoria Ford. But fair enough. Give me a day to make some calls and get my notes organized?”
“Absolutely. You still have my number?”
“Yeah,” Walt said.
Avery reached into her purse to pay her bar tab.
“It’s on me,” Walt said.
“I made you come all the way from Jamaica. The least I can do is buy you a drink.”
Avery dropped money next to her glass and slipped off her stool before heading out of the bar.
CHAPTER 24
Manhattan, NY Tuesday, June 29, 2021
WALT JENKINS WATCHED THE TALL, ATTRACTIVE JOURNALIST HE’D SEEN a thousand times on television walk out of the Rum House. It had been a week since his old Bureau boss tracked him down at a cliff-side café in Jamaica, and here he was now, sitting in a dark bar in Manhattan. The contrast was startling. After just three years in Negril Walt realized how accustomed he’d become to island life and how far removed he was from his time as a surveillance officer. But still he found himself laying the groundwork, brick by brick, like he’d done so many times before, not sure where he was headed or what the next piece of road looked like.
The plan was to be up-front and honest about his past if Avery Mason broached the subject. She was an investigative journalist, and attempting to hide anything about his career in the Bureau would be a mistake. It seemed to rattle her just momentarily when he mentioned his past connection with the FBI, but she brushed it off quickly. He was certain she would spend the time between now and the next time they met looking into his story. It would all check out. The only thing he hadn’t mentioned was that he was back on the FBI’s payroll. Jim Oliver had been careful to explain that they were paying Walt as an independent consultant, and not refitting him with his old title of special agent. If Avery Mason got nervous and started snooping, Oliver wanted Walt’s connection to the Bureau to end where it had three years ago—retired in good standing and with full pension.
He took a sip of rum, a Samaroli Jamaican Rhapsody that was too big for his wallet. Thankfully, the government was picking up the tab. He rubbed the scar on his sternum, like he’d been doing thirty minutes earlier while he waited for Avery to arrive. The scar still bothered him from time to time, producing a gnawing itch that drove him mad. The doctors promised it would eventually fade, but warned that until it did he should work to identify the triggers that brought on the symptoms and do his best to avoid them. As Walt sat at the Rum House in Times Square he realized that the last time the scar bothered him was a couple weeks earlier when he sat on his front porch pretending to read a John Grisham novel but really contemplating his upcoming trip to New York for the survivors meeting. Was the city itself a trigger, or all the baggage that waited here?
He finished his rum with a final tilt of the glass. This city held the mistakes and pains of his past, and he believed, like most, that to overcome those mistakes and ease the pain he needed to run from them. But that wasn’t true. To make things right, he needed to face things head-on. As he was settling on the best way to do that, out of thin air an operation had developed. His first in years. It was an opportunity to pick himself up, dust himself off, and get back in the saddle. Whether it was an opportunity to put his past behind him or an exercise in procrastination, he hadn’t figured out yet.
He waited another minute and then strolled out of the bar to keep tabs on his new subject—a woman who happened to be one of the most popular television journalists working today. If he hadn’t been making a concerted effort to limit his alcohol intake, he might have thought the rum was getting to him.
CHAPTER 25