Look Closer(104)

They check out the one major office, an impressive office at that—Nicholas Caracci’s attempt to be “Christian Newsome,” the wealthy, super-smart investor. A wet bar in the corner and cushy couch. Electronic banners scrolling indices from the Dow Jones, the NASDAQ, and the Nikkei. Flat screen TV on the wall. A massive, sleek metal desk. Expensive rugs. He definitely looked the part.

But nothing in the drawers. Nothing in the cabinets. No computer anywhere.

No signs of who was here or what they did.

? ? ?

They find the building manager down in the lobby.

“Anything else I can do for you, Sergeant Burke?” he says, on his best behavior. Most people are when the cops come a-calling.

“We appreciate your help,” says Jane. “We’re just going to need one more thing. You keep visitors’ logs?”

? ? ?

Jane and Andy walk through a low gate and pass through a small garden in front of the walk-up to the three-flat in Lincoln Park. Jane finds the button next to the name Fielding.

“You still don’t believe it,” Jane says to Andy.

“I’m not saying that. I’m keeping an open mind.”

“Okay, partner.” She pushes the button, a buzz following.

“Hello?” a voice squawks through the speaker.

“Emily Fielding?”

“Yes?”

“My name is Jane Burke. I am a police officer in Grace Village. You’re not in any trouble, don’t worry,” she quickly adds. “We’d like to ask you a few questions about the guy you work for, Christian Newsome.”





93

Simon

“Lead the way,” says Gavin, though I will need to remember not to call him that. “Special Agent John Crane” was the name he gave.

“We can sit right in here,” I say.

I show him into my living room, the first room you see when you enter the house, by my mother’s design. I wasn’t allowed in this room when I was a child. We hardly came in here. My parents would have dinner parties and would end up in this room for coffee and dessert. The furniture hasn’t changed since that time.

The couch is stiff, last I checked, so I direct him there and sit in one of the individual chairs, with its outdated velvet cushion. Or who knows, maybe fashion has come full circle, and this is the latest thing.

“So tell me how I can help,” I say.

Up close, Gavin is a little scarier than I remembered. I’d seen him on Christian’s balcony a couple of times, but I didn’t get a look at him up close. He’s thick in the neck, shoulders, and chest, and his eyes are set like a predator’s. He reminds me, more than anyone, of that wrestler, Mitchell Kitchens.

“Do you know a man named Christian Newsome, Mr. Dobias?”

I look up, like I’m pondering. “No, never heard the name.”

“What about Nick Caracci?”

I open my hands. “No.”

“Lauren Betancourt? You know her, don’t you, Mr. Dobias?”

That’s not very good procedure. A real FBI agent, not someone posing as one, would have asked that open-ended, innocently. Give me a chance to give the wrong answer, so they could slap me with a 1001 charge for lying to a federal agent.

“I would say I did know Lauren,” I answer.

“Why the past tense? Because she was recently murdered?”

Again, Gavin, bad form—don’t feed me that answer; give me some rope with which to hang myself. (Pardon the pun.)

“Past tense,” I say, “because I have not spoken to Lauren for nineteen years.”

Gavin, trying for the stone-faced, by-the-book special agent, jerks in his position, which is funny to see from someone sitting down. “You haven’t spoken to Lauren for nineteen years?”

“That’s right. Since 2003. She finally left town in 2004, but last time I spoke to her was 2003,” I say. “I heard she was back in town. And I heard about her recent death, obviously.”

He poises a finger in the air. It looks like he’s losing some color to his face. “Mr. Dobias, you know it’s a crime to lie to a federal agent.”

I do know that. And I’m not lying. Okay, maybe I spoke to Lauren after she was dead at her house, but I don’t consider that “speaking to” her. Otherwise, I’m telling the truth.

I have not said one word to Lauren in nineteen years, not since the day I confronted her at the law firm, the morning after I found her fucking my father.

“Mr. Dobias, we know you were having an affair with Lauren,” he says.

“A what? You think I had a relationship with Lauren, of all people? She’s the last person in the world I’d get near.”

That is all true.

“Agent Crane,” I say, “is there some reason you think I was sleeping with Lauren?”

Of course there is. What Gavin knows, he knows via Christian.

“We’ve read your diary, Mr. Dobias.”

Well, technically, Christian read the diary. I prefer the word journal, but this is not a time to quibble over terminology.

“What diary?” I say. “I don’t have a diary.”

That was some of my best work. Full of highs and lows and melodrama, like most passionate romances. And sure, I sprinkled in some truth—the best lies always have some truth, right? But by and large, yeah, the whole thing was a work of fiction. The whirlwind affair, my hemming-and-hawing, Lauren being pregnant—fake, fake, fake. Necessary for Christian, though, full of details to give the whole thing a real narrative form.