Same Difference, page 2
She was a student at New Amsterdam University in Manhattan and that was definitely a place to start. I decided that instead of calling the registrar’s office, I’d head over to New Amsterdam personally. The face-to-face thing helps, especially when you’re a big enough person to seem intimidating no matter how sweet you’re acting.
I got up, grabbed my trusty canvas bag and started toward the door, but Ken reached up with one hand to indicate I should stop. Against my better judgment, I did as his hand requested.
‘What?’ I said. Brevity is the soul of wit.
He gestured in the direction that Brian had left a few minutes before. ‘What did you think of him?’ It wasn’t unusual for us to consult on a client after the first meeting, but it wasn’t a strict rule, either.
‘He wasn’t lying,’ I said. ‘He meant everything he said as far as I could tell.’
Ken nodded slowly. ‘Yeah. His respiration and body temperature stayed normal and steady. He didn’t fidget. He didn’t look away except when you asked him a question he was embarrassed about answering. He gave the impression of a man who was absolutely calm and in control.’
He was building toward something and the offices of New Amsterdam University weren’t open all night, I guessed. ‘Is that a problem?’ I asked.
‘Not if you’re having a conversation about a golf date next week or a business meeting that’s entirely routine. That guy was supposed to be all kinds of upset over his daughter transitioning and then vanishing before he could find it in himself to respond properly. But he was absolutely calm and in control.’
I would have suggested that Brian was masking his anguish but Ken would have been able to read that in almost every case. ‘So you think he’s hiding something?’
‘Who isn’t?’ And he gave me a significant look.
Maybe it’s time I told you a little about Ken and me.
TWO
I pondered what Ken had raised as I walked to New Amsterdam. Yeah, it was forty-five blocks but I’m a New Yorker and my stamina is better than most. It’s part of being who I am. What I am.
I’ll give you the short version.
About thirty-five years ago, two brilliant married scientists named (at least then) Olivia Grey and Brandon Wilder experimented with some techniques to greatly accelerate healing and, in one of those crazy flights of fancy scientists have, also solved their fertility problem by creating two children for themselves. Ken and I were not stitched together from the corpses of madmen and criminals, so let’s get that out of your head. We were, as far as my non-scientific mind can determine, more grown than fashioned. Maybe we’re organic. I’ve never asked.
I know; it’s a lot to absorb. But wait, there’s more.
Olivia and Brandon, whom Ken and I consider our parents, were being pursued by … someone. A government agency? A foreign government? SMERSH? We have no idea. But they became convinced that their presence was now dangerous to their children and they arranged to leave New York City, where we live, for places extremely unknown. We were just toddlers then, so I have virtually no memory of my mother and father, but I do know about my Aunt Margie, who is not my aunt.
Aunt Margie was a radio news reporter in New York and got wind of some incredibly promising results from two scientists then working in the New Brunswick, New Jersey area (guess who). They became close friends over a few years. Aunt Margie never reported on us at all out of affection for Brad and Livvie (as she called Mom and Dad) and was glad to watch us for a while until the heat blew over.
It’s been roughly thirty years, and the heat is still as hot as ever, so Aunt Margie is the only parental figure we’ve ever actually known.
The one thing I haven’t mentioned is that Ken and I have to plug ourselves into a wall socket every few days to maintain our energy. No, I’m not kidding. We have USB ports under our left arms and simple charging cords can keep us at top strength. Until I was thirteen I thought everybody had one of those, so that’s how clued in I was.
So you’re not running for the door or refusing to speak to me now, are you? Because you’re a reasonable person. But Detective Richard Mankiewicz of the New York Police Department isn’t as nice a person as you are, clearly. Mank and I had been dating briefly before I foolishly decided I could trust him and unloaded my whole admittedly bizarre story on him during a diner breakfast. Let’s say it had not worked out as well as I’d hoped.
I got done with the saga (a considerably more detailed version than the one I’ve given you) and Mank, whose fork had stopped midway to his mouth around the time I’d said I’d never actually been born, stared at me for an uncomfortably long moment. I had actually come to care for him and was concerned that I’d said too much or burdened him with a much more heavy load than I’d intended – after all, I’ve been this way all my life so I’m used to it – but Mank simply stood up, turned and walked out of the diner.
Carrying the fork.
Since then I’d only seen him twice because I don’t frequent police precincts unless I have to, and both times he’d avoided my eyes and mumbled a hello as he passed me. So far he hadn’t ratted me out to the authorities, as far as I knew so that was something.
It was among the things I was trying not to think about.
The topic I was trying to think about was Eliza Hennessey and her current whereabouts. I had, let’s face it, a grand total of nothing to go on, which was just a little less than the usual. Brian had been willing to talk but hadn’t known much of anything. I hadn’t asked about his daughter’s habits from when she’d been publicly living under her deadname and could kick myself for that now, but it probably wouldn’t have been a shining beam of light indicating where Eliza might be at this moment. I had asked about her living arrangements; she’d been mostly living at home with her father but sometimes staying with friends for a few days at a stretch. But she’d tell him when she was, not like now. I decided I’d go to the apartment to examine her room if the college thing didn’t yield any good results.
Walking uptown was the usual pageant of New York being New York. Everyone was in a hurry and thought they needed to get where they were going faster than you. In my case, they had a point, since I had no specific deadline. The New Amsterdam University offices would be open for a few hours yet. To tell the truth, I didn’t expect to find that shining beam of light there, either, but it was all I had.
I decided to blame Rich Mankiewicz for my not having a clear direction in Eliza’s case. He was just as good a scapegoat as any, and since I had no intention of forgiving him for ghosting me after I told him I was essentially a superbeing created by science, he was basically asking for it. Besides, he wasn’t talking to me and would never know about my decision.
The New Amsterdam University campus is pretty much what you’d expect it to be: a college campus in Manhattan. It could be mistaken for a series of office buildings. Of course, that’s only one of the college’s campuses, as there are a few spread out around the city. It’s not exactly pastoral, but you can walk to Central Park if you head west for a few blocks.
I took the usual way too much time to find the office of the college registrar and waited semi-patiently in line for a few minutes before I was granted an audience with a fifty-ish woman behind a counter. In another timeline she’d have been smoking a cigarette and wearing harlequin glasses, but this was now so she was sucking from a bottle of flavored water and wearing contact lenses that made her eyes look green. I hoped she didn’t think she was fooling anyone.
I didn’t show her my investigator’s license right away because it intimidates some people and annoys others. It rarely gets one the level of unconditional respect one might consider appropriate, if one took the time to think about it. ‘I’d like to get some information on a student here,’ I said. ‘Her name is Eliza Hennessey.’
‘You’re not her, right?’ the woman said.
‘No. I’m just trying to track down some information …’
There was no point in continuing, which was just as well because the woman cut me off. ‘You her mother?’
That was problematic in any number of ways. For one thing, I’m biologically capable of being the mother of a nineteen-year-old but I’m hardly the age most women would be and I sort of resented the implication. Also, I was stuck for an answer. When in doubt, Aunt Margie always says, tell the truth and you won’t have to remember whatever nonsense you made up later. ‘No,’ I answered.
‘Good, because I couldn’t tell her mother anything, either. Our students have rights to privacy. So, sorry, but I can’t tell you anything.’ Another swig of blueberry water.
Time to bring out the license, which I did and showed it to her. Briefly. ‘She’s missing and I’m looking for her because her family is worried,’ I said. ‘What can you tell me now?’
‘Remember how I couldn’t tell you anything before? That.’
I leaned in, which helped because I can loom over most people and this situation certainly called for looming. ‘This girl’s life could be in danger and I need a direction to look in,’ I said, my voice taking on probably more urgency than I was feeling at the moment. For all I knew, Eliza hadn’t done anything more dangerous than leaving home to seek the life she wanted. ‘And right now the only thing standing in my way is you.’
‘Lady, this kid is a legal adult. If she doesn’t feel like being found it’s none of my business and, frankly, none of yours. Her family can be as worried as they want, and I get that, but I can’t tell anybody anything about her without her actual written permission. Now I got people in line behind you, so let’s move on, OK?’
Now I felt urgency. ‘No, let’s not move on. I’m looking for a nineteen-year-old girl who’s either in over her head or has been taken by someone and I need to find her. So forget your regulations and look up Eliza Hennessey now!’
Truly, could an episode of Succession boast such impassioned speech? I’d have taken a moment to pat myself on the back but I felt that would have diluted the moment and I needed the moment.
But my adversary clearly was not a fan of appointment television. ‘It’s the law, lady,’ she said. ‘Do I have to call security?’
She did not.
It’s not easy for someone my height to slink, but I was in the process of slinking away from the office when the fourth person in line, a young woman who I assumed to be an undergrad at New Amsterdam, held up a hand as I passed, palm out as if she were stopping traffic.
She was a very average-looking woman whom I was sure could have found herself a boyfriend among her classmates if that was her desire. But I had no time to think about that or ask her about her love life, something I would never have done anyway, because she started off with: ‘Did you say Eliza Hennessey?’
Sometimes the investigation gods smile on you when you least expect them.
I admitted that I did and said that Eliza had been missing for a few days and her family (I didn’t want to be specific about Brian because I wasn’t really clear on how his relationship with Eliza might have been characterized … by Eliza) had hired me to find her. ‘Do you know her?’ I asked the young woman.
‘I know her from a class in nineteenth-century women writers,’ she said. ‘We’re not close friends or anything but we went to get a coffee a couple of times. Is she OK?’ She looked concerned but not frantic, which fit her description of the relationship.
‘That’s what I’m trying to find out. May I ask your name?’
A sly smile tried not to appear on her lips. ‘You may ask,’ she said. She waited a moment, didn’t get the light chuckle she might have been seeking, and added, ‘I’m Laura Rapinoe.’
‘Nice to meet you, Laura. Do you have a few minutes to talk?’
Again there was a slight sense of amusement. ‘Well, I’m in this line and I have nowhere to go, so how can I help?’
It turned out that Laura knew a little – not a lot – more about Eliza Hennessey than she has initially suggested. They’d met the first day of class, some ten weeks previous, and had a mutual interest in Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, a name that had been mentioned to me fairly frequently by my closest intimates, namely Ken and Aunt Margie. But Eliza and Laura had gone beyond Frankenstein to Shelley’s lesser-known works.
‘We started to really focus in on this book called The Last Man, which some people say is the first post-apocalyptic novel,’ Laura said. She still had to wait for two more people to be served in line. ‘Eliza really got into it because it was about people dealing with all sorts of impossible issues, and she was going through some stuff, you know?’
The woman at the counter called the next person in line so I figured I’d better step up the pace. ‘Was her relationship with her father that bad?’ I said. ‘I got the impression he was at least trying to understand who she really was.’
Laura looked at me closely for a moment. ‘Her dad?’ she said. ‘It wasn’t great but I’ve seen worse. He didn’t like her getting hormone therapy because he said it scared him. He didn’t know what kind of presents to give her for her birthday. But he wasn’t kicking her out of the house or anything.’
‘So what was she unhappy about in particular?’ I asked. It’s a common mistake for a client to make, assuming that they are the center of whatever issue has caused a rift. I felt foolish that I had assumed Brian Hennessey’s assumption had been correct.
‘I don’t know,’ Laura said. ‘Like I said, we aren’t besties or anything. Did you ask Damien?’
Damien! I believe we have stumbled across a clue, Watson! The stupid thing to do would have been to pretend I had more information than I actually possessed, but I’d already made an Investigator 101 mistake and was determined not to add to it. ‘I don’t know Damien,’ I told Laura. ‘Who’s that?’
She did seem to think I should have at least known that, but she wasn’t going to hold it against me. ‘Damien’s this guy from class – a friend, not a boyfriend, I don’t think,’ she told me. ‘When she came out they just sort of glommed on to each other and she always talks about him, like whatever he told her that day. Damien’s the source of all knowledge to Eliza.’
The woman at the counter finished with her charge and gestured to Laura. ‘Next!’
I only had a second. ‘Damien got a last name?’ I asked.
She shrugged. Even without Ken there I could feel her heart rate rise; she was lying. ‘Go over to the Benson Hall and wait. He’s almost seven feet tall and has red hair. You can’t miss him.’ Then Laura walked over to the counter and was immediately engrossed in her registrar business. I thanked her quietly and walked out.
THREE
I spent the better part of an hour trying not to look suspicious while hanging around a college campus despite clearly not being a student, professor or administrator, and doing nothing except if a very tall red-haired young (I assumed) man named Damien might show up. He didn’t, so eventually I decided to head back to my office because I had more than one case to work on. I could see an oversized man there, assuming my brother hadn’t found an excuse to take half a day off.
Igavda had three messages for me when I walked in, and I could understand two of them, which was an Igavda personal best. Her knowledge of English was … well, better than my Bulgarian, so I had no basis for complaint. One of the legible messages was from a client who called three times a day for updates, so I could wait for the next call to respond.
The other one was from Mank.
That was annoying. The guy knew my cell number, after all. If he wanted to apologize for his reprehensible behavior he could call or text me there. Calling the office was his bid to be captain of the Olympic passive-aggressive team. I wouldn’t answer him at the precinct and would wait to text until my rage had boiled down to a simmer.
Ken was, a little surprisingly, on his phone but sitting at his desk, which might lead some to believe he was working on a case. I couldn’t say for certain that he wasn’t but was waiting for more concrete evidence to present itself in either direction.
He wasn’t speaking loudly but I can hear almost as well as he can (which, no offense, is better than you’re able to do) so I heard him say, ‘We might be able to help,’ which moved the needle toward him actually working. I don’t want to be unfair – Ken does pull his weight at the agency, but he does so reluctantly. I think he feels like he’s not a real investigator yet, despite his holding a legitimate license in the state of New York. I love him dearly, but not to the point that I’d spend a lot of time trying to heal his ego on that count. I am the better, and more experienced, investigator in our firm and that’s not subject to interpretation.
Sorry. Occasionally I need to vent.
I sat down at my desk and booted up my desktop computer. A lot of people prefer to work with a laptop and I get that but I’m a big girl and I like a big screen. For one thing it makes me look less like a freak when a client walks in.
I worked for a while on the case of the client who called a lot in the hope that I’d have something to say to her when she next contacted us. She was looking for her birth mother in New Jersey, less than an hour from where I was sitting, and now it was simply a matter of a few emails and a rental car trip through the Lincoln Tunnel to confirm what I already knew, which was that the birth mother was not interested in meeting with the daughter she’d put up for adoption. It’s not an uncommon outcome in my business, but it’s never a pleasant one, and I’d do my best to convince her to change her mind. I’d probably fail.
The best thing to do after I’d gotten most of that out of the way was to search for Damien, who was my one and only lead. It would have been nice if I’d known his last name, but Laura clearly had not wanted to give that up, something I’d have to follow up on. All I had for semi-certain was that he could have been drafted by the NBA and had red hair. Granted, that ruled out much of the population but wasn’t going to be a slam dunk (if you’ll pardon the expression) in locating him and asking him about Eliza Hennessey.
