Buried Secrets (Nick Heller) Read online

  “Did you know Dorothy has an audio feed on her computer that lets her listen in to everything you say in your office?”

  “Yes, Gabe. That’s our arrangement. The real question is, does Dorothy know you were snooping around on her computer?”

  “Please don’t tell her. Please, Uncle Nick.”

  “So what were you thinking about her Facebook page?”

  “You’re not going to tell her, are you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Okay. I’m pretty sure I know where Alexa went last night.”

  “How so?”

  “It was on her Facebook wall.”

  “How were you able to see that?”

  “We’re Facebook friends.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, I mean, like,” he stammered, his face flushing again, “she has like eleven hundred Facebook friends, but she let me friend her.”

  “Very cool,” I said, only because he sounded so proud.

  “She came over to Nana’s a couple of times since I’ve been there. I like her. She’s cool. And it’s not like she has to be nice to me, you know?”

  I nodded. Beautiful rich girls like Alexa Marcus usually weren’t nice to annoying, nerdy boys like Gabe Heller.

  “So where’d she go?”

  “She and her friend Taylor went to Slammer.”

  “Which is what?”

  “Some fancy bar in that hotel that used to be a jail? I think it’s called the Graybar?”

  “Taylor—is that a boy or a girl?”

  “A girl. Taylor Armstrong? She’s the daughter of Senator Richard Armstrong. Taylor and Alexa went to school together.”

  I glanced at my watch, put my hand on his shoulder. “How about we ask them to pack up our food to go?” I said.

  “You’re going to talk to Taylor?”

  I nodded.

  “She’s at home today,” Gabe said. “Probably sleeping it off. I bet you find Alexa there too. Uncle Nick?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t tell Alexa I told you. She’ll think I’m like a stalker or something.”

  12.

  I found the junior senator from Massachusetts picking up his dog’s poop.

  Senator Richard Armstrong’s large white standard poodle was trimmed in a full Continental clip: shaven body, white pom-poms on his feet and tail, and a big white Afro perched atop his head. The senator, in a crisp blue shirt and impeccably knotted tie, was groomed just as carefully. His silver hair was perfectly coiffed, with a sharp part on one side. He leaned over, his hand inside a plastic CVS bag, grabbed the dog’s excrement, and deftly turned the bag inside out. He stood upright, face red, and noticed me standing there.

  “Senator,” I said.

  “Yes?” A wary look. As a well-known, highly recognizable figure, he had to worry about lunatics. Even in this very posh neighborhood.

  We stood in a long oval park, enclosed by a wrought-iron picket fence, in the middle of Louisburg Square on Beacon Hill. Louisburg Square is a private enclave of long red-brick row houses built in the nineteenth century, considered one of the most elegant neighborhoods in Boston.

  “Nick Heller,” I said.

  “Ah, yes,” he said, and gave a big, relieved smile. “Sheesh, I thought you were with the association. Technically, you’re not supposed to walk your dog here, and some of my neighbors get quite upset.”

  “I won’t tell,” I said. “Anyway, I’ve always thought that dogs should be trained to pick up our poop.”

  “Yes, well … I’d shake your hand, but…”

  “That’s all right,” I said. “Is this a good time?” I’d reached out to him through a mutual friend, told him what was going on, and asked if I could come by.

  “Walk with me,” he said. I followed him to a historic-looking trash bin, where he dropped his little bundle. “So, I’m sorry to hear about the Marcus girl. Any news? I’m sure it’s just a family quarrel.”

  Armstrong had a Boston Brahmin accent, which is nothing like what most people think of as a Boston accent. It’s very upper-crust WASP, mid-Atlantic, and it’s dying out. Hardly anyone speaks that way anymore except maybe a few old walruses at the Somerset Club. He sounded like a cross between William F. Buckley and Thurston Howell III from Gilligan’s Island. Someone once told me that if you listened to recordings of Armstrong when he was a young man, he sounded entirely different. Somewhere along the way he’d acquired the patina. But he really was descended from an old Boston family. “My family didn’t come over on the Mayflower,” he’d once said. “We sent the servants over on the Mayflower.”

  We stood before his house—bow front, freshly painted black shutters, glossy black door, big American flag waving—and he began to climb the gray-painted concrete steps. “Well, if there’s anything in the world I can do to help, just ask,” he said. “I do have friends.”

  He gave me his famous smile, which had gotten him, a moderate Republican, elected to the Senate four times. A journalist once compared the Armstrong smile to a warm fire. Up close, though, it seemed more like an artificial fireplace, with faux ceramic “logs” painted red to simulate glowing embers.

  “Excellent,” I said. “I’d like to talk to your daughter.”

  “My daughter? You’d be wasting your time. I doubt Taylor has seen the Marcus girl in months.”

  “They saw each other last night.”

  The senator shifted his weight from one foot to another. His poodle whined, and Armstrong gave the leash an abrupt yank. “News to me,” he finally said. “Anyway, I’m afraid Taylor’s out shopping. That girl likes to shop.” He gave me the sort of beleaguered smile guys often give other guys say, Women—can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em.

  “You might want to check again,” I said. “She’s upstairs right now.”

  Gabe was monitoring her incessant Facebook postings and texting me updates. I didn’t know how, since he wasn’t a Facebook friend of Taylor’s, but he’d found some way.

  Taylor Armstrong, he’d texted me a few minutes ago, had told her 1372 friends that she was watching an old Gilmore Girls rerun and was bored out of her skull.

  “I’m sure she and her mother—”

  “Senator,” I said. “Please get her for me. This is important. Or should I just call her cell?”

  Of course, I didn’t actually have Taylor Armstrong’s cell phone number, but it turned out I didn’t need it. Armstrong invited me in, no longer bothering to conceal his annoyance. The poodle whined again, and Armstrong snapped the leash. No more election-winning smile. The electric fireplace had been switched off.

  13.

  Taylor Armstrong entered her father’s study like a kid summoned to the principal’s office, trying to mask her apprehension with sullenness. She sat down in a big overstuffed kilim-covered chair and crossed her legs doubly, the top leg tucked tightly under the lower. Her arms were folded, her shoulders hunched. If she were a turtle, she’d be deep inside her shell.

  I sat in a facing chair while Senator Armstrong skimmed papers through half-frame glasses at his simple mahogany desk. He was pretending to ignore us.

  The girl was pretty—quite pretty, in fact. Her hair was black, obviously dyed, and she wore heavy eye makeup. She dressed like a rich girl gone bad, which apparently she was: She went to the same rich-girls’ reform school out west where Alexa had spent a year. She was wearing a brown suede tank top with a chunky turquoise necklace, skinny jeans, and short brown leather boots.

  I introduced myself and said, “I’d like to ask you a few questions about Alexa.”

  She examined the old Persian carpet and said nothing.

  “Alexa’s missing,” I said. “Her parents are extremely worried.”

  She looked up, petulant. For a moment it looked like she was about to say something, but then she apparently changed her mind.

  “Have you heard from her?” I said.

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “When did you last see her?�
�

  “Last night. We went out.”

  I was glad she didn’t try to lie about it. Or maybe her father had briefed her when he’d gone upstairs to fetch her.

  “How about we go for a walk?” I said.

  “A walk?” she said with distaste, as if I’d just asked her to eat a live bat, head first.

  “Sure. Get some fresh air.”

  She hesitated, and her father said, without even looking up from his papers, “You two can talk right here.”

  For a few seconds she looked trapped. Then, to my surprise, she said, “I wouldn’t mind getting out of the house.”

  * * *

  FROM LOUISBURG Square we crossed Mount Vernon Street and made our way down the steep slope of Willow Street. “I figured you could use a cigarette.”

  “I don’t smoke.”

  But I could smell it on her when she first came downstairs. “Go ahead, I’m not going to report back to Daddy.”

  Her expression softened almost imperceptibly. She shrugged, took a pack of Marlboros and a gold S. T. Dupont cigarette lighter from her little black handbag.

  “I won’t even tell Daddy about the fake IDs,” I said.

  She gave me a quick sidelong glance as she opened the lighter, making that distinctive ping. She flicked it crisply, lighted a cigarette, and drew a lungful of smoke.

  “Drinking age is twenty-one,” I said. “How else are you going to get a drink around here?”

  She exhaled twin plumes from her nostrils like a movie star from the old days and said nothing.

  I went on, “I used to forge fake IDs for my friends and me when I was a kid. I used the darkroom at school. Some of my friends sent away for ‘international student IDs.’”

  “That’s fascinating.”

  “Gotta be easier today, with scanners and Photoshop and all that.”

  “I wouldn’t know. You just buy one from a friend.”

  We crossed over to West Cedar down a tiny alley called Acorn Street, paved in cobblestones dredged from the Charles River a long time ago. This was a real street, and it was charming, but I doubted the Defender could fit through it. Also, the cobblestones would have done a number on the suspension.

  “So why didn’t your dad want you to talk to me?”

  She shrugged.

  “No idea?”

  “Why do you think?” she said bitterly. “Because he’s the senator. It’s all about his career.”

  “Senators’ daughters aren’t allowed to have a good time?”

  A mirthless laugh. “From what I’ve heard, he did nothing but have a good time before he met my mom.” She paused for dramatic effect. “And plenty after too.”

  I ignored that. I’m sure the rumors were true. Richard Armstrong had a reputation, and not for his legislative work. “You two went to Slammer together,” I said. I waited a long time for her response—five, ten seconds.

  “We just had a couple of drinks,” she said finally.

  “Did she seem upset? Pissed off at her parents?”

  “No more than usual.”

  “Did she say anything about getting out of the house, just taking off somewhere?”

  “No.”

  “Does she have a boyfriend?”

  “No.” She sounded hostile, like it was none of my business.

  “Did she say she was scared of something? Or someone? She was once grabbed in a parking lot—”

  “I know,” she said scornfully. “I’m like her best friend.”

  “Well, was she afraid that something like that might happen again?”

  She shook her head. “But she said her dad was acting weird.”

  “Weird how?”

  “Like maybe he was in trouble? I really don’t remember. I was moderately lit at that point.”

  “Where’d she go after Slammer?”

  “How should I know? I assume she went home.”

  “Did you two leave the bar together?”

  She hesitated. “Yeah.”

  She was so obviously lying that I hesitated to call her on it outright for fear of losing any chance of her cooperation.

  Suddenly she blurted out, “Did something happen to Lexie? Do you know something? Did she get hurt?”

  We’d stopped at the corner of Mount Vernon Street, waited for a couple to pass out of hearing range. “Maybe,” I said.

  “Maybe? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I need you to tell me everything.”

  She threw down her cigarette on the buckled brick sidewalk, stubbed it out, pulled another from her handbag. “Look, she met a guy, okay?”

  “Do you remember his name?”

  She shook her head, lighted the cigarette, clearly avoiding my eyes. “Some Spanish guy, maybe. I don’t remember. Their names all sound the same to me. Marco. Alfredo. Something.”

  “Were you with her when she met this guy?”

  I could see her running through a series of mental calculations. If this, then that. If she said she wasn’t with Alexa, why not? Where was she? Two girls go to a bar, they almost always stay together. They don’t divide and conquer. They protect each other, signal to each other, vet prospects for each other. And compete for a guy sometimes, sure. But for the most part they work as a team.

  “Yeah,” she said. “But it was loud, and I didn’t really catch his name. And I was definitely sideways by then and I just wanted to go home.”

  “The guy didn’t try to hit on you?”

  Her eyes narrowed. Now it was a point of pride. “The guy was so lame,” she said. “I totally blew him off.”

  “Did they leave together?” I said.

  I waited so long I thought she might not have heard me. When I was about to repeat the question, she said, “I guess. I don’t really know.”

  “How could you not know?”

  “Because I left first.”

  I didn’t bother to point out the contradiction. “You went straight home?”

  She nodded.

  “You walked?” Louisburg Square was directly up the hill, a fairly short walk unless you were hammered and wearing stilettos.

  “Cab.”

  “Did you hear anything from Alexa later on that night?”

  “Why would I?”

  “Come on, Taylor. You girls document every minute of your lives with text messages or on Facebook or whatever. You post something when you brush your teeth. You mean to tell me she didn’t text you to say ‘OMG I’m at this guy’s apartment’ or whatever?”

  She looked contemptuous, did the eye-roll thing again.

  “You haven’t heard from her since you left Slammer last night?”

  “Right.”

  “Have you tried to call her?”

  She shook her head.

  “Text her?”

  She shook her head again.

  “You didn’t check in with her for an update on how the night went? I thought you guys are, like, BFFs.” Somehow I knew that was chat-speak for Best Friends Forever.

  She shrugged.

  “Do you understand that if you’re lying to me, if you’re covering something up, you might be endangering your best friend’s life?”

  She shook her head, started walking down the street, away from me. “I haven’t heard anything,” she said without turning back.

  My gut instinct told me she wasn’t lying about that. Obviously, though, she was lying about something. Her guilt flashed like a neon sign. Maybe she didn’t want to come off as a bad friend. Maybe she’d ditched Alexa for some hot guy herself.

  I called Dorothy and said, “Any progress in locating Alexa’s phone?”

  “No change. We’re going to need the assistance of someone in law enforcement, Nick. No way around it.”

  “I have an idea,” I said.

  14.

  When your job involves working with the clandestine, as mine does, you learn the power of a secret. Knowing one can give you leverage, even control, over another, whether in the halls of Congress or the halls of h
igh school, in the boardroom or the faculty lounge or at the racetrack.

  Most secrets are kept to conceal crimes, abuses, or failures. They can destroy a career or undermine an enemy, and they’ve brought down quite a few world leaders. In Washington, where you’re only as important as the secrets you know, secrets are truly the coin of the realm.

  It was time to spend some of that coin.

  When I worked at Stoddard Associates in D.C., I did a project for a freshman congressman from Florida who was fighting a nasty reelection battle. His opponent had got hold of a copy of the lease on an apartment in Sarasota he’d rented for his girlfriend, a hostess at Hooters. This was news to his wife, the mother of his six children, and definitely inconvenient for the congressman, given his strong family-values platform. I did some cleanup work and the whole paper trail disappeared. The waitress found new employment in Pensacola. Her landlord had no recollection of renting to the congressman and declared the deed a forgery. The congressman won the election in a squeaker.

  It wasn’t a job I was proud of. But now the congressman was the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, which oversees the FBI. He didn’t owe me any favors, since he’d paid well for Stoddard’s “research services,” but I knew certain things about him, which was even worse. I reached him on his private line and asked him to make a call for me to the Boston field office of the FBI.

  I told him I needed to talk to someone senior. Now.

  * * *

  A PARKING space was about to open up on Cambridge Street directly in front of the FBI, which is roughly as common as a solar eclipse. I double-parked and waited for the woman in the Buick, who’d just switched on her engine, to pull out.

  But she was taking her time. First she had to touch up her lipstick; then she had to make a phone call. I allowed her ten more seconds before I gave up.

  In the meantime, I called Marcus. “Marshall, what did the police tell you?”

  “The police? Oh, you know, the usual nothing. If she hasn’t turned up by tonight, I can file a missing-persons report.”

  “Well, we’re not waiting.”

  “Do you know anything?”

  “No,” I said flatly. “I’ll tell you as soon as I do.”