I wait a second to make sure my words register in his eyes.
When they do, I see no reason to waste time.
I pull the trigger three times.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Wilde headed up to 72nd Street and walked east until he entered Central Park. Rola was buying a soft-serve vanilla in a waffle cone from an ice cream truck.
“Want one?” she asked him.
“It’s ten in the morning.”
“It’s an ice cream, not tequila.”
“Pass.”
Rola shrugged a suit-yourself. They passed the aggressive onslaught of soliciting pedicabs and headed down the narrow path that led to Strawberry Fields.
“You don’t look good,” Rola said.
“Thanks.”
“Those cops.”
“Let it go.”
“Fine. How did it go with Marnie Cassidy?”
He told her as they passed the tourists crowding the Imagine mosaic to pay homage to John Lennon. When he finished, Rola said, “You’re shitting me.”
“I shit you not.”
“Someone put her up to it?”
“From what I gather,” Wilde said, “reality TV takes real lives and makes them into compelling stories. They don’t have to be true. They just need to make you tune in. Most of their stars understand that’s the point. You need to feed the drama monster. But Peter the reality character had grown kind of bland. He’d been married for a while. No kids. My guess is, someone on the show set this up to stir the pot. Maximize viewer interest.”
“Which it did,” Rola said.
“Which it did.”
“Plus the producers knew that Jenn’s sister would do anything for a slice of fame.”
“Yes.”
“So the big question: Did Peter roofie or harass other women?”
“Is there any proof he did?”
“The stuff you downloaded off Henry McAndrews’s computer,” she said.
“What about it?”
“We found more photos of Peter.”
“And?”
“I’m having an expert check, but they seem legit. They were also pretty graphic.”
Wilde thought about that. “Any idea who sent McAndrews the photos?”
“Nope. You know about how he billed through his son’s law firm?”
“Yes.”
“So it looks like all the emails were sent to the law firm first, using a VPN and anonymous email account. That’s not difficult, as you know. The law firm then forwarded the emails and attachments to Henry McAndrews.”
They crossed past the bronze Daniel Webster monument. They both stopped and read the inscription on the base: “LIBERTY AND UNION, NOW AND FOREVER, ONE AND INSEPARABLE.”
“Prophetic,” Rola said.
“Yep.”
“But I guess you’d expect that from the dictionary guy.”
That was Noah Webster, not Daniel, but Wilde let it go.
“If I’m following what you’re saying,” Rola continued, “you think the producers decided to cancel Peter Bennett, and by ‘cancel,’ I mean it in two ways. Cancel in the modern vernacular of ruining him. Canceling in terms of getting him off the show.”
“Maybe.”
“It seems extreme. Playing with people’s lives like this.”
“That’s all these shows do. Have you ever watched? You take easily manipulated young people who are thirsting for fame, and then you mess with them. It’s open season. They get you drunk. They create destructive drama. Every already-insecure contestant is put through an emotional wringer, and they aren’t equipped for it.”
“I get manipulation,” Rola said, “but they can’t just make up stuff.”
“They can, yes.”
“No, you don’t get what I’m saying. It’s one thing to tell someone, ‘Pick a fight with that contestant’ or even ‘Break up with that guy.’ Whatever. It’s another thing to set up a situation where you accuse a man of committing a crime like this and destroy his reputation entirely. I don’t care what the release says — he’d be able to sue for damages.”
That was a good point. “Unless,” Wilde said, “it’s true.”
“That’s what I’m trying to get at. Suppose a woman did come to the producers. Or whoever. She told her story about being roofied. She has some evidence. The photos, texts, whatever. So now the producers can reveal this and even claim it’s not only to help the show, but it’s safest for their other employees.”
Wilde frowned.
“What?” Rola asked.
“You’re making sense. Awful sense, but sense.”
“Right? And then add in Marnie. She’ll do anything to get on the show, and she’s easy to manipulate. Like you said, all these contestants are. Your cousin sounds naïve as hell too. Suddenly the nice-guy Peter is transformed into the ultimate villain. Not only did he cheat and sexually assault — but he did so with the beloved Jenn’s very own sister.”
“It got a ton of attention.”
“Yes.”
Wilde shook his head. “Gross.”
“Also, yes.”
“So what’s our next step? Confront the producers?”
“What are they going to tell you?” Rola countered. “It’s not like they’ll admit any of this. But more to the point, what difference does it make? How does any of this help us find Peter Bennett?” Rola stopped and stared up at him. “We’re trying to find him, right?”
“Yes.”
“Because this sounds more like you’re trying to rehabilitate his image.”
“Rehabilitate the image of a reality star,” Wilde said. “Hard to care.”
“Precisely. So let me move on to more important matters, because this is weird. Really weird. I got a copy of Peter Bennett’s birth certificate. He was born April 12 twenty-eight years ago. His parents are listed as Philip and Shirley Bennett.”
Wilde frowned. “But that’s his adoptive parents.”
“That’s just it. There’s no sign Peter was adopted. According to this, they gave birth at Lewistown Medical Center, which is maybe half an hour from Penn State. There is a doctor listed. Curtis Schenker. He’s still alive. I contacted him myself.”
“What did he say?”
“What do you think he said?”
“Patient confidentiality?”
“Pretty much. A HIPAA violation, plus he’s delivered like a hundred million babies and couldn’t remember them all. But here is something: Two years after Peter Bennett’s birthday, Dr. Schenker surrendered his medical license for five years because of health-care fraud.”
“Meaning he’s sketchy.”
“Yes.”
“Sketchy enough to take a bribe to sign a birth certificate?”
“Could be. But let’s review this. The Bennett family is living in the Memphis area — Mom, Dad, two girls. They move near State College, Pennsylvania, and suddenly they have a baby boy named Peter.”
That was when Wilde saw it.
“Listen to me closely,” Wilde said.
“What?”
“Keep walking like nothing is different.”
“Oh, shit, what? Is someone tailing us?”
“Just keep walking. And talk to me. Change nothing.”
“Got it. So what’s the deal?”
“I’ve spotted three of them. There are probably more.”
“Where are they?”
“Not important. Do not look for them, even surreptitiously. I don’t want them to know we’re on to them.”
“Got it,” Rola said again. “Are they cops?”
“Not sure. Law enforcement for certain. Pretty good at this too.”
“So probably not the Hartford police guys again.”
“Probably not. Could be doing them a favor though.”
“You have a plan?”
Wilde did. They continued to cross the park. On the left, a ton of tourists milled around the red brickwork of Bethesda Terrace on the edge of a lake that, in a pique of originality, was dubbed The Lake. There were plenty of selfies and selfie sticks and all manner of phone-cum-social-media photography. Wilde and Rola moved through the crowd, faux chatting all the way. It would be hard for the people following them to keep up and hidden amongst the throngs of tourists. Wilde was careful not to look back. Now that he knew they were there, there was no use risking a glance.