The Ex(59)

I was sure. Charlotte and I had spooked Sharon when we’d shown up at her house unannounced. She’d never answer her door for us a second time. I reassured Don that we weren’t doing anything wrong: We were paying her more than her going rate for sex in exchange for a simple conversation. We had already agreed that we wouldn’t stop her from leaving, not physically at least. And all three of us were here to witness the interaction, just in case she was tempted to level any false allegations against us.

Einer and I ducked into my kitchen. We couldn’t see Sharon-slash-Helen but could hear the conversation in the living room clearly. The initial introductions were as innocuous as a housecleaning visit: Hi, I’m Helen. I’m Don. How are you doing tonight? I’m fine, how are you? And then things got X-rated quickly.

“I think you know how I’m doing,” she said. “I’m horny. Isn’t that why you asked me here?”

I would have thought that a thousand dollar a night whore would bring hotter dialogue than a late-night Skinemax flick, but poor Don was clearly mortified. “Um, actually—I think we should talk for a little while.”

“Yeah? Is that what you like? Talk? What do you want me to talk about?”

I heard steps and a thud, then couldn’t resist any longer. I had to peek. Don was scurrying across my sofa while Helen tried to straddle him.

“You know what I like?” Don asked, standing up and folding his hands protectively in front of his nether regions. “I like cars.”

“Yeah, baby?” Helen was twirling her long brown hair, kicking one leg back and forth flirtatiously. “What kinds of things do you like to do when you’re behind the wheel?”

“I don’t like driving cars as much as knowing about them. Or the business of them.” Don was no longer acting like an embarrassed gentleman. “Like the kind of business that would sell cars to good people with bad credit. The kind of place that would call itself New York Universal Auto World. The type of business, Sharon, that would lease a luxury SUV to a single mother of two with no steady documented source of income only on the condition that she have a GPS installed in case the car needed to be repo’d.”

She started backing up toward the door. “How do you know my name? What do you know about my kids?” Her face fell when I stepped from the kitchen. “How many times do I have to say it? I don’t know anything.”

“You told me you were at the Essex House for that all-night date I asked about. But your car dealer’s GPS tracker says otherwise. You were at the Quik Park on Bleecker and Washington.” It was the closest discount lot to Christopher Street Pier. “You arrived just before six thirty in the morning and left a little after seven, not long after a man named Jack Harris completed his usual loop around the pier.”

“I don’t want anything to do with this.”

“It’s too late for that, Sharon. You can either talk to us now, or I can issue a subpoena to the escort service.” No, I couldn’t subpoena the escort service, but hookers and actresses don’t know that. “If you cooperate with us, I can at least try to keep the fact of your side gigs as quiet as possible. How someone found you for the job doesn’t matter. What we need to know is how you wound up at the pier that morning. Who hired you?”

“I have no idea. It was all by e-mail. The guy said it was a prank he wanted to play on a coworker. I didn’t ask any questions. He told me to wear something fancy. The basket was there waiting for me. I was supposed to read a book. When the guy ran past me, I was supposed to look interested—a little flirty.” She slumped down into my sofa and ran her fingers through her hair. “And that’s all I know, I promise.”

Einer stepped from the kitchen, but I shot him a look that sent him ducking back out of sight. I didn’t want to scare Sharon off again. “You said the guy hired you. What do you know about him?”

“Nothing. I mean, I guess I don’t even know it was a guy. It was all by e-mail. They left cash in the basket for me—enough to cover the whole night—under a bench a little south of the pier.” I already knew that cameras didn’t cover that spot, and we hadn’t seen anyone carrying a picnic basket in any of the footage. “I wasn’t happy about the arrangement but I figured I could check easily enough when I arrived and leave if it didn’t pan out. I got paid two grand for an hour’s work.”

“And you really thought that was someone’s version of a practical joke?”

“Do you know the kind of dough weird people have in this city? I have a friend who got paid ten thousand dollars to clean some dude’s condo in her underwear. It’s like Monopoly money for perverts.”

“What about after the shooting?”

“Why do you think I was so freaked out when you came to my house? Right after I heard about the shooting, I was thinking, wow, I was just there a couple of weeks ago—you know? But then when I read about the shooter carrying a picnic basket, I e-mailed the person who hired me, like: what the f*ck’s going on? All I got back was an error message saying the account was closed. I don’t know anything else, and I’m terrified.”

“What was the e-mail account?”

She fumbled through her black patent leather clutch purse and pulled out an iPhone. The e-mail address she read aloud was the same one Madeline had used to tell Jack to meet at the waterfront the morning of the shooting.