Kiss the Girls and Make Them Cry(89)
“Sally, aquí, here,” she said, mixing Spanish and English as she often did when she was agitated.
She put her arms around the girl, who began to cry and shake uncontrollably. “Bastardos,” she whispered to herself as she stroked the girl’s hair and felt the moisture of tears on her shoulder. “Hermosa ni?a peque?a. Lo siento. No he podido protegerte,” she said softly. “Beautiful little child. I’m sorry. I have not been able to protect you.”
Rosalee held Sally, rocked her back and forth, and ran her hand up and down her back. “Querido Jesús, dime qué hacer. Dear Jesus, tell me what to do.”
The mal had come back, and this time she was going to do something about it.
98
Michael Carter was becoming increasingly distracted, and it showed. He’d spent the morning at a deposition for his client Sam Cortland, who had been sued for violating a noncompete agreement after he left his previous employer. Twice during the interrogatory he’d had to check his notes to remind himself of the name of Sam’s erstwhile supervisor at the firm. It was even more embarrassing when he stumbled over his client’s last name, referring to him as Sam “Kirkland.”
“Are you all right?” a concerned Sam had asked during a break.
“I’m fine” was his reply. Truth be told, he was anything but fine.
Every facet of the REL News situation was taking a toll on him. The previous evening he had delivered a cash honorarium to an administrative supervisor in the New York State Attorney General’s Office. On a Zip drive she had given him transcripts of what was supposed to be secret grand jury testimony—after he had sat cooling his heels in a Starbucks until she arrived three hours late.
How do you resign from a job you don’t officially have? he asked himself. A letter to Junior saying he was retiring from being REL’s bagman? A letter to Sherman stating he was leaving his position as secret settlement negotiator?
There was still a million and a half dollars of REL’s money in his attorney trust account. Would returning it raise awkward questions? If he used it for his own expenses, on top of everything else would he face charges of theft? Maybe it would be best to just leave it in his attorney trust account until—Until when? he asked himself.
The idea that he had been dealing closely with a murderer increasingly unnerved him. Sherman had access to his personnel file at REL. He knows where my family and I live. Anytime he wants to he can—Carter didn’t finish the thought.
He had reached out to his friend at the credit rating agency yet again. The invoice this time was for double the usual amount. The note in the email explained why. Your boy Sherman has four cards in his own name and two joints with his wife. No charge for the additional info on Gina Kane.
Hi-Liter in hand, one account at a time, Carter now scanned through Sherman’s charges during the previous eighteen months. Despite himself, he chuckled as he came across numerous charges at Madelyn’s. It was an innocuous-sounding name for a high-end strip club in Midtown.
When he was finished, he stood up, stretched, and closed his eyes. They felt strained after a sleepless night. He hadn’t found any entries that would put Sherman in the vicinity around the times when Ryan and Stephenson were killed. But the exercise provided little comfort. If Sherman wanted them dead, he had the resources and probably the brains to hire somebody to do the dirty work.
Sitting back down, he clicked on the attachment that included the most recent three weeks of Gina Kane’s MasterCard charges.
The American Airlines charge leaped out at him. Gina had flown from LaGuardia to RDU, which he remembered was Raleigh-Durham airport. She had spent one night in a hotel, and there were two Uber charges.
Two and a half weeks later she went from Newark to ORD, which he recognized as O’Hare in Chicago, and then to OMA. “That’s got to be Omaha,” he said aloud. She had rented a car and eaten at a restaurant. The next day she had paid for a hotel and for gas.
He opened Paula Stephenson’s personnel file to confirm what he already knew. She had graduated from the University of Nebraska.
After trekking down to Aruba to investigate Cathy Ryan, this Gina Kane went to Durham to check out Paula Stephenson. And then she went to Omaha, presumably to talk to Stephenson’s family.
It’s Junior’s company, Carter thought angrily. Let him figure out what we should do. He reached into his travel bag and pulled out the computer he used exclusively to communicate with Junior and Sherman. A four-word email was sufficient. We have to meet.
99
“All right. Would you please tell him Gina Kane called?” Gina spelled her last name. “There’s a story I’ve been investigating. I believe American Nation will be interested in learning more about it.”
“Our policy is that you send an email first. Include a synopsis—”
“I don’t mean to interrupt you or be rude, but that’s not my policy. Please ask Mr. Randolph to be in touch as soon as he returns from vacation.”
Gina put the phone down. Putting all my eggs in the Empire Review basket may have been a mistake, she thought to herself. But she had believed it would be easier than this to get started at another publication.
Cheer up, she told herself. It’s been a really good twenty-four hours.