Buried Secrets

9.



By the time I got back into the Defender headed down 128 South toward Boston it was after noon. I couldn’t shake the feeling that Marshall Marcus really did have a serious reason to fear that something had happened to his daughter. Something he’d actually anticipated.

In other words, not an accident. Even if it had nothing to do with the brief abduction a few years back. Maybe it was nothing more than a fight between Alexa and her stepmother, which ended with Alexa making a threat—I’m leaving, and I’m never coming back!—and then taking off.

Though it didn’t really make sense that Marcus would withhold that sort of thing from me. Even if he was being chivalrous and wanted to shield his wife from the embarrassment of airing the family’s dirty laundry, it wasn’t like Marcus to be discreet. This was a guy who happily discussed his constipation, his difficulty urinating, and how Viagra had improved his sex life even more than JDate. He was the king of “TMI,” as my nephew Gabe would say: Too Much Information.

Just as I was about to call Dorothy and ask her how we might be able to locate Alexa’s phone, my BlackBerry rang. Jillian, the office manager.

“Your son’s here,” she said.

“Uh, I don’t have a son.”

“He says you two were supposed to have lunch?” In the background I could hear cacophonous music playing way too loud. She’d turned my office into a dorm room.

“Whoops. Right. He’s my nephew. Not my son.” I’d promised Gabe I’d take him to lunch, but I’d forgotten to put it on the calendar.

“That’s funny,” she said. “We just had a long talk, Gabe and me, and I just assumed he was your son, and he never corrected me.”

“Yeah, well.” He wishes, I thought. “Thanks. Tell him I’ll be there soon.”

“Cool kid.”

“Yeah. That your music?”

There was a click, and the music stopped. “Music?”

“Could you put me through to Dorothy?” I said.





10.



Gabe Heller was my brother Roger’s stepson. He was sixteen, a very smart kid but definitely a misfit. He had hardly any friends at the private boys’ school he attended in Washington. He dressed all in black: black jeans, black hoodies, black Chuck Taylors. Recently he’d even started dying his hair black too. It’s not easy being sixteen, but it must have been particularly hard to be Gabe Heller.

Roger, my estranged brother, was a jerk, not to put too fine a point on it. He was also, like our father, in prison. Luckily, Gabe was genetically unrelated to his father, or he’d probably be in juvie. I seemed to be the only adult he could talk to. I don’t know what it is about me and troubled kids. Maybe, the way dogs can smell fear, they can sense that I’ll never be a parent, and so I’m safe. I don’t know.

Gabe was spending the summer at my mother’s condo in Newton. He was taking art classes in a summer program for high school students at the Museum School. He loved his Nana and wanted to get away from his mother, Lauren—who was no doubt relieved not to have to deal with him after school was out. My mother was hardly strict, so he was able to hop on the T and go into town and hang out in Harvard Square when he wasn’t in school, and I’m sure he enjoyed feeling like a grown-up.

But I think the main reason he wanted to be in Boston was that it gave him an excuse to see me, though he’d never admit it. I loved the kid and enjoyed spending time with him. It wasn’t always easy. Not everything worthwhile is easy.

He was sitting at my desk, drawing in his sketch pad. Gabe was a scarily talented artist.

“Working on your comic book?” I said as I entered.

“Graphic novel,” he said stiffly.

“Right, sorry, I forgot.”

“And hey, way to remember our lunch.” He was wearing a black hoodie, zipped up, with straps and D-rings and grommets on it. I noticed a tiny gold stud earring in his left ear but decided not to call attention to it. Yet.

“Sorry about that, too. How’s the summer going for you?”

“Boring.”

For Gabe, that was a rave. “Wanna grab some lunch?” I said.

“I’m only about to pass out from hunger.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

I noticed Dorothy hovering at the threshold. “Listen, Nick,” she said. “That number you gave me? I’m not going to be able to locate her phone.”

“That doesn’t sound like you. That sounds … defeatist,” I said.

“Ain’t got nothing to do with defeatism,” she said. “Nothing to do with my ability. It’s a matter of law.”

“Like that ever stopped you?”

“It’s not—oh, hello, Gabriel.” Her tone cooled.

Gabe grunted. He and Dorothy had a history of clashing. Gabe thought he was smarter than she, which was probably true, since he was an alarmingly brainy kid—and better at computers, which wasn’t true. Not yet, anyway. Still, he was sixteen, which meant that he thought he was better at everything. And that just pissed Dorothy off.

“Here’s the deal,” she said. “The person whose phone you want me to locate…” She glanced at Gabe in annoyance. She was always discreet about the work she did for me, but she was being particularly careful.

“Can we speak in private, Nick?”

“Gabe, give me two minutes,” I said.

“Fine,” he snapped, and left my office.

* * *



“SOUNDS LIKE you’re actually taking the case,” Dorothy said. “Will wonders never cease.”

I nodded.

“Couldn’t pass up the money?”

I replied with sarcasm, “Yeah, it’s all about the money.”

“You got a problem with money?”

“No, it’s … it’s complicated. This is not about Marshall Marcus. I happen to like his daughter. I’m worried about her.”

“Why is he freaking out? I mean, she’s seventeen, right? Drives into town, probably to some club, hooks up with a guy. That’s what these kids do.”

“You sleep around a lot when you were her age, Dorothy?”

She gave me a stern look and held up a warning forefinger with a long lilac fingernail. I didn’t understand how she could type with nails that long.

I smiled. As little as I knew about her sex life, I knew she was hardly the promiscuous type.

“I don’t get it either,” I admitted.

“I mean, I understand why the dad could be losing it if this was right after she got snatched in that parking lot. But that was years ago, right?”

“Right. I think he knows more than he’s telling me.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe you need to ask him some direct questions.”

“I will. So tell me about Facebook.”

“Tell you about Facebook? All you need to know, Nick, is it’s not for you.”

“I mean Alexa. She must be on Facebook, right?”

“I think it’s a legal requirement for all teenagers,” she said. “Like the draft, back in the day.”

“Maybe there’s something on her Facebook page. Don’t kids post everything they do every second?”

“What makes you think I know the first thing about teenagers?”

“See what she has on Facebook, okay?”

“You can’t do that unless you’re one of her ‘friends.’”

“Can’t you just hack her password?”

She shrugged. “I’ll look into it.”

“So what’s the problem with locating her iPhone?”

“It’s just about impossible unless you’re law enforcement.”

“I thought there was some way for iPhone owners to track down their lost phones.”

“We’d need her Mac user name and password. And I’m guessing she doesn’t share things like passwords with Daddy.”

“You can’t crack it, or hack it, or whatever you do?”

“Yeah, I can just snap my fingers and I’m in, just like magic. No, Nick, that takes time. I’d have to make a list of her pets’ names and any important dates, and try the ten most common passwords, and that’s a crapshoot. Even if I do succeed, odds are we won’t get anything, because she’d have had to activate the MobileMe finder on her phone, and I doubt she did. She’s seventeen and probably not real big into the technology.”

“Probably not.”

“Fastest way is ask AT&T to ping the phone through their network.”

“Which they’ll only do for law enforcement,” I said. “There’s got to be some other way to find this girl’s phone.”

“Not that I know of.”

“So you’re giving up.”

“I said not that I know of. I didn’t say I’m giving up. I never give up.” She looked up and noticed Gabe lurking outside my office door. “Anyway, I think your son is getting hungry,” she said with a wink.





11.



I took Gabe to Mojo’s, a bar down the street that served lunch. This was a typical Boston bar—five flat screens all showing sports or sports news shows, lots of Red Sox and Celtics memorabilia, a foosball table in the back, pub food like wings and nachos and burgers, a sticky wooden-plank floor. They served good cold beer as well as the infamous local brew, Brubaker’s, which even I had to admit was pretty bad. The patrons were a democratic mix of stockbrokers and cabdrivers. A local reviewer once compared Mojo’s regulars to the cantina scene in Star Wars: that collection of weird-looking intergalactic creatures. Herb, the owner, liked that so much he had the article framed and put on the wall.

“I like that new girl you hired,” Gabe said.

“Jillian?”

“Yeah, she’s cool.”

“She’s different, that’s for sure. Now, tell me: Is Nana abusing you?”

“Nah, she’s cool.”

“How about Lilly? How’s Lilly treating you?”

Lilly was my mother’s dog, a shar-pei/English mastiff mix she’d rescued from the pound. Lilly was not only the ugliest dog in the world but also the worst-tempered. She’d been abandoned multiple times and I could see why.

“I’m really trying to like her,” Gabe said, “but she’s … I mean, I hate that dog. Plus, she stinks.”

“She’s the hound from hell. Don’t look into her eyes.”

“Why not?”

“The last person who did dropped dead on the spot. They say it was a heart attack, but…” I shrugged.

“Yeah, right.”

“You miss being home?”

“Miss it? Are you kidding?”

“Life at home not so good these days?”

“It sucks.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“What?”

“What’s with the earring?”

He said, defensively, “What about it?”

“Does your mom know you got your ear pierced?”

He shrugged. Asked and answered.

“I forget,” I said. “Does the left side mean you’re gay?”

He blushed, which turned his acne scarlet. “No. Left is right and right is wrong, ever hear that?”

“Aha,” I said. “So being gay is wrong?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

I smiled. Gabe could be insufferable in that know-it-all teenage way, so I considered it my civic duty to keep him off balance.

Herb took our order. Normally he was stationed behind the bar, but lunchtimes were always slow. He was a large-framed potbellied guy with a heavy Southie accent. “Yo Nicky,” he said. “How’s the accounting business? You got any tips for me, like how to stop paying taxes?”

“Easy.”

“Yeah?”

“Do what I do. Just don’t pay ’em.”

He paused, then laughed loudly. It didn’t take much to amuse him.

“Truth is, I’m an actuary.” The sign on our office door said HELLER ASSOCIATES—ACTUARIAL CONSULTING SERVICES. This was an excellent cover. As soon as I told people I was an actuary, they stopped asking questions.

“Right, right,” he said. “What’s an actuary, again?”

“Damned if I know.”

He laughed again. “Gotta hand it to you, man,” he said kindly, “I don’t know how you do it. Crunching numbers all day? I’d go out of my mind.”

Gabe gave me a quick, knowing smile. I ordered a burger and fries and asked him to make sure they weren’t the “curry fries,” which were inedible. Gabe looked up from the menu. “Do you have veggie burgers?” he asked.

“We have turkey burgers, young fella,” Herb said.

Gabe furrowed his brow and tipped his head to the side. I recognized that look. It was the supercilious expression that got him beat up at school on a regular basis and sometimes even thrown out of classes. “Oh,” he said, “I didn’t realize turkey was a vegetable.”

Herb gave me a sideways glance as if to say, Who the hell is this kid? But he liked me too much to give it back to my guest. “How about a Cobb salad?” he said blandly.

“Yuck,” Gabe said. “I’ll just have a plate of fries and ketchup. And a Coke.”

When Herb left, I said, “Looks like Jillian has a new recruit.”

“Jillian says that eating red meat makes you aggressive,” Gabe said.

“And that’s a bad thing?”

He refused to take the bait. “Whatever. Hey, Uncle Nick, you know, that was a good idea you had about Alexa’s Facebook.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Alexa Marcus? Her dad is scared something might’ve happened to her?”

I looked at him for a few seconds, then slowly smiled. “You son of a bitch. You were eavesdropping.”

“No.”

“Come on.”

“Did you know Dorothy has an audio feed on her computer that lets her listen in to everything you say in your office?”

“Yes, Gabe. That’s our arrangement. The real question is, does Dorothy know you were snooping around on her computer?”

“Please don’t tell her. Please, Uncle Nick.”

“So what were you thinking about her Facebook page?”

“You’re not going to tell her, are you?”

“Of course not.”

“Okay. I’m pretty sure I know where Alexa went last night.”

“How so?”

“It was on her Facebook wall.”

“How were you able to see that?”

“We’re Facebook friends.”

“Really?”

“Well, I mean, like,” he stammered, his face flushing again, “she has like eleven hundred Facebook friends, but she let me friend her.”

“Very cool,” I said, only because he sounded so proud.

“She came over to Nana’s a couple of times since I’ve been there. I like her. She’s cool. And it’s not like she has to be nice to me, you know?”

I nodded. Beautiful rich girls like Alexa Marcus usually weren’t nice to annoying, nerdy boys like Gabe Heller.

“So where’d she go?”

“She and her friend Taylor went to Slammer.”

“Which is what?”

“Some fancy bar in that hotel that used to be a jail? I think it’s called the Graybar?”

“Taylor—is that a boy or a girl?”

“A girl. Taylor Armstrong? She’s the daughter of Senator Richard Armstrong. Taylor and Alexa went to school together.”

I glanced at my watch, put my hand on his shoulder. “How about we ask them to pack up our food to go?” I said.

“You’re going to talk to Taylor?”

I nodded.

“She’s at home today,” Gabe said. “Probably sleeping it off. I bet you find Alexa there too. Uncle Nick?”

“What?”

“Don’t tell Alexa I told you. She’ll think I’m like a stalker or something.”