“Call in from Montclair’s, let us know if he’s okay. I’m sending a couple people to meet you there. No going it alone, not with a crazy woman on the loose.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll call in. Thank you for watching my back.”
“When a case breaks, it breaks wide open. Good job, Graham. Good job.”
LEAN ON ME
Then
His name was Henry Tomkins. In school, his friends called him Hank.
Hank led an ordinary life in an ordinary town in the middle of nowhere, Ohio. He was, in turns, an unremarkable student, a slightly better athlete, and a champion drinker. He also liked acting. His parents, sensing the wild streak in their son and hoping it might be the trick to keeping their only child out of jail, encouraged this interest. They attended all the plays, from first grade’s Thanksgiving festivus to the pinnacle, Hamlet, Hank’s senior year.
That’s where it all went off the rails. Hank lost the lead role to a quiet African American kid named Barent Goodson. For years after the indignity, the Tomkinses would say the school simply wanted to lay claim to having a black Hamlet, their bitterness disregarding the fact that Barent Goodson was one hell of an actor, who went on to appear alongside Denzel Washington in a cop movie, and subsequently became a star in his own right.
When Hank was shunted aside for his more talented classmate, (even though he took the role of Claudius, and played it well), the situation hit him hard. He’d worked his whole short acting career to be Hamlet, knew all the soliloquies by heart. He identified with the young prince of Denmark, probably more than anyone around him knew. And where a disappointment of this magnitude would normally send a young man of relative means to the next step regardless, like moving to New York and waiting tables and trying for an off-Broadway play, or maybe even a trip to California to take some acting classes and try writing a screenplay or two, Hank Tomkins was made of lesser grit, and was destroyed. Flattened.
This damage was irreversible.
The drinking, a pastime moderated by the acting, grew to epic proportions. DUIs followed, and a stint in jail. Drugs were next, and another stint in jail, this time for dealing marijuana.
The downfall was fast and complete. Disappointed Hank catapulted himself to the dark side, and didn’t look back.
It was a deficit in his character, absolutely, that made him so unable to handle even the simplest of bad situations, but a person’s true character is rarely revealed until they are staring into the face of adversity. Hank’s test came early, when he wasn’t emotionally mature enough to handle it after being coddled by parents and friends his whole existence, but it would have shown up sooner or later.
He was handsome, Hank, and a partier, and always had a little cash on hand, which meant he attracted women who thought to enjoy his attentions. He took great advantage of said attentions, but then he met a girl who started to straighten him out, and things began to look up. Neighbors whispered Hank Tomkins had outgrown his childhood disappointment and was going to be a responsible young adult. But then the idiot cheated with Alicia Barstow, his high school crush. And of course, Alicia got pregnant and told his girlfriend, and the whole world collapsed down around him again. Wash, rinse, repeat—only he was caught dealing meth this time.
A sympathetic judge took pity on Hank and threw him into rehab. Which turned into a life-changing experience for our young man.
Sober for the first time in years, he acquired the tools and learned the trades a man needs to succeed in life. Like how to commit fraud, check kiting, identity theft, and where to find the shadow men who did all sorts of things behind the scenes for criminals who had needs, desires, and money.
This wasn’t the education the judge wanted him to receive, but Hank happened to be there at the same time as a kid named Jake, who was one of the most successful con artists Ohio had seen in recent years. So good he’d conned a judge into sending him to rehab instead of jail after his last infraction.
Jake and Hank were inseparable. Jake taught Hank all he knew. Turned out Hank, with all his intelligence, had an aptitude for the long con. He was a very good actor, after all. Brilliant with accents, mimicry. He kept them all in stitches doing impressions during group therapy.
And then there was Ivy.
She arrived on a Wednesday at two in the afternoon. Ivy was hot in the damaged way of all lost young women. Doe eyes, scraggly blond hair with dark roots, waif thin. She wouldn’t talk to anyone, or meet anyone’s eyes. She shuffled around the edges, watching without looking. There were rumors, always rumors. Suicide attempt, probation violation, assault while under the influence. None of it mattered; all of it was true.
She was a swan among ducklings. She was a queen. She ruled them all, one bashful Mona Lisa smile at a time.
Hank, understandably, fell hard. She became a project. To win a smile, that’s all he wanted.
He’d always been the friendly sort.
It only took him a few days to make the connection. He told her of his life. His passion for acting. The disappointments he faced. The changes he was going to make.
When she shared her story, Hank was lost. And forever marked by the lonely waif.
When he got out of rehab, he waited for her.
When she got out, three months later, she was changed. There was a hardness in her, a coldness. Armor had been developed. Protections put in place. Gone was the lost girl. In her place was a woman.
A woman with ideas. A woman with a plan.
And Hank, lovesick Hank, bought in.
Five years later, when the police picked him up on the Jersey Turnpike, Trent Duggan’s passport in hand, he denied knowing anyone named Ivy Brookes. Denied being in Paris. Denied killing Rick and Lily. Denied ever having met or slept with a woman named Sutton Montclair.
He stuck to the script, like he’d been told.
It didn’t matter. There was DNA evidence at Sacré-Coeur, his hair on young Lily’s body. The FBI had him dead to rights for a double murder, and this time, he was going away for good. His only chance, they told him, was to make a deal.
They pressed him hard. And in the end, he caved. The story he told them was beyond anything they could have imagined.
THE TRINITY
Now
Ethan came awake with a groan. His head was splitting. The situation rushed his memory. Ivy. One second he’d been standing, in horror, realizing the woman he’d called friend was betraying him, and the next, it was night, he was on the floor, and he knew for a fact if someone were to observe him at this moment, they’d see small bluebirds circling his head, tweeting and chirping.
Ivy had gotten him good.
Ivy, you betrayed us.
His nose was broken; he could feel the blood running down his chin, thick and warm. He shuffled himself to his elbows, sat up. Ran a hand below his nose, tried to swallow, coughed up blood onto his shirt.
Realized someone was banging on the door, calling his name. It sounded like Officer Graham.