Every Last Fear(17)
“To get my family.”
CHAPTER 11
Matt stormed out of the building, Jane calling after him. He pushed past the photographers and hailed a cab to LaGuardia. In the back, he bumped around on the cracked vinyl seat for a long while, staring out at nothing. The closing scene from Michael Clayton. The cab slammed the brakes hard, then swerved around a car that had cut them off, the cabbie cursing out the window.
If they crashed, Matt realized, few people would really care. Jane would make a show of how upset she was, and sure, the gang from Rubin Hall would get together, tell a few stories, give some toasts to Matt Pine. But he’d soon become an afterthought. Talked about in the larger context of bad luck or family curses or famous tragedies. One Pine wrongfully locked up for murder, four Pines killed in a freak accident while on vacation, and the other one—what was his name?—dead in a car wreck on the way to the airport to claim the bodies of his deceased family members. They’d say seize the day lest you suffer the fate of the Pines.
Not today, he thought as the cab yanked to a stop outside the airport terminal. Inside, he gave the dour-faced airline worker the confirmation number the FBI agent had given him, and retrieved his ticket. He then found an ATM and breathed a sigh of relief when, after several tries, he remembered the PIN for the emergency credit card: 1010. His parents’ default passcode, October 10, the month and day they’d met in college. Another surge of grief consumed him. Pocketing the five hundred dollars, he then submitted to the torture of modern air travel—long lines, shoes off, no liquids—and soon he was at his gate, the duffel draped over his shoulder.
Matt sat in the chair of molded plastic for a long while, staring blankly out the large windows onto the tarmac. The planes lifted off and landed in the morning sun. Thousands and thousands of strangers who would never cross paths again, intersecting at this one point in time. Grains of sand at the beach. Ants on a hill. He needed to shake the morbid thoughts.
By nine thirty, the gate was getting crowded. It was then Matt had the feeling that someone was watching him. He scanned the crowd—the businessmen yacking on cell phones, the college kids with neck pillows, the rare traveler dressed to the nines amid the sloppy masses—but he didn’t see the culprit. But he had no doubt he was being watched. He knew the feeling.
He’d refused to participate in the documentary, but he couldn’t escape the family photos and old news footage sprinkled over ten dramatic episodes set against a haunting score heavy on cello and violin. After it aired, people would often give him the Do I know you from somewhere? look. The true believers, the Danny Pine faithful, made the connection, and Matt would have to turn down selfies or apologize that he wasn’t really a hugger. He’d unwillingly become part of a national mystery, a game of Clue where journalists—and internet detectives—came up with elaborate theories and spent an unbelievable amount of time trying to prove whodunit.
The show had struck a chord. A beautiful young girl disfigured in the most gruesome way. The all-American boy wrongfully accused. A small town painted in the worst kind of light—and, of course, the suspects overlooked.
The documentary pointed to one in particular, Bobby Ray Hayes. He was in prison for killing several young women. He’d sexually assaulted and murdered the girls, then smashed in their skulls with large rocks. The media uncreatively called him “the Smasher.” Depending on where you were from, you’d call the Hayes clan white trash or hillbillies or rednecks. After the documentary, they were called that and then some. And the youngest in the brood—a shark-eyed menace named Bobby Ray—was straight out of central casting as a creepy killer of women.
Matt spotted a man in an expensive-looking suit pretending not to look at him. The guy fit the profile. Danny Pine’s “fans” were a decidedly well-heeled crowd, people who couldn’t wrap their heads around a wrongful conviction, oblivious to how often it happened to the poor. Spend a few minutes with Matt’s father, and he’d give you an earful about the 2,852 individuals on the National Registry of Exonerations who’d collectively spent 23,540 years in prison for crimes they did not commit.
“Matthew,” a voice said from behind him. It was the FBI agent. Keller.
“Hey,” he said.
“I heard you had some excitement this morning,” Agent Keller said.
Matt didn’t understand. He hadn’t reported the guy who’d shoved him into the street. It was just a few hours ago.
She held up her phone, displaying a story from some web news rag. The headline read: SURVIVOR OF “A VIOLENT NATURE” FAMILY ATTACKED.
Matt groaned.
“There’s also a feature story about your family in this morning’s edition of the Times.” She said it like a warning. “Are you okay? What happened? Were you really attacked?”
Matt told her about the man with the cleft lip scar.
“Why didn’t you call me? Or report what happened to the NYPD? What if—”
“I’m fine, just some bruises. I didn’t get a good look at the guy and he didn’t get anything, so there wasn’t anything to report.”
Keller didn’t seem thrilled by his response, but she couldn’t do much about it. She retrieved a sheet of paper from her handbag. “This has the name of the consular officer who will meet you at the airport. He’ll know where to go, but just in case, I also included the address of the police station and the name of the local officer in charge of the investigation.”