Legacy, page 30
“But he might make a mistake the other way.”
“Might, maybe. And they’d still have my name on them, so they’d end up at the post office anyway. No return address. It’s not an answer. I don’t know if this is either, but I feel better. I feel like I did something to flick back at him.”
Hissing, Teesha pulled out her phone when it signaled. “It’s Harry. Hi, Harry. Yes—wait—yes, I know. I’m standing here with her right now. Uh-huh.”
Teesha held out the phone. “It’s for you.”
“Damn it.”
She let him rage at her.
“No, I’m not taking it down, and what’s the point if it’s already got over two hundred views? One of them’s probably him—her—let’s just say them. I’m not sorry I did it because, damn it, I needed to hit back. No, wait.”
She drew a breath. “I’m saying this to both you and Teesha. I’m sorry it upsets you, worries you. I’m sorry it’s going to upset and worry my mother and everyone else. But … the card he sent after Popi died, it tore at me. This one just snapped what was left. I’m done, Harry. I’m done. I’m giving the phone back to Teesha now.”
Once she did, she walked over, picked up the ball, threw it again. A few minutes later, Teesha wrapped arms around her from behind.
“We love you, Adrian.”
“I know, that’s why I’m sorry this worries you. I know, I do, it wasn’t the safe, sensible thing to do. But, Teesha, I needed to hit back, finally. I needed to at least feel like I’d taken some control.”
“I get that. I get you—we’ve been friends too long for me not to get you.”
“Same goes, so I really am sorry I’ve added more worry. Just remember I’ve done all the other sensibles. Cops, FBI, investigator, security system, self-defense classes, big dog.”
Sadie dropped the ball at Adrian’s feet, looked up adoringly.
“Yeah, she’s ferocious. Okay.” Teesha gave Adrian a last squeeze, then stepped back. “When it comes down to it, I don’t know if I could’ve held out as long as you have. And when you hit back, you hit hard. That asshole’s going to need first, second, and third aid for the burn you gave him.
“And I’ve got to go. I’ll see you tomorrow when I torture you with the budget for furnishing the youth center.”
“The Rizzo Family Youth Center.”
“Okay then. You’ve decided on the name.”
“I’ve gone around and around. Do I name it after my grandparents, after Popi—since it’s his vision? But he shared that vision with Nonna. Still, they wouldn’t have been here, had the means to have the vision, without his parents. I wouldn’t be here able to bring that vision into reality without all of that, including my mother. So family, and you can add the plaque to the budget.”
“We’ll talk about that.” Teesha looked down at the ever-patient Sadie. “Learn to growl at least.”
Adrian picked up the ball again as Teesha left. “Growling’s not your style, is it, baby?”
She threw the ball again, and again while she worked out how to tell Rachael what she’d done.
“Lectures, Sadie. I think I’m in for another lecture. Why are lectures worse than a solid smack in the face?”
When Rachael texted she was running a little behind, Adrian told her not to worry. She settled down on the front porch with her tablet, doing searches on plaques. Sizes, materials, shapes, fonts.
She didn’t want a big, flashy statement, but something more subtle, dignified, suiting the building.
She wanted what her grandparents would have wanted.
She took another text after she’d narrowed her favorites down to three.
Adrian, delayed by traffic. ETA now six. Can reschedule if that’s too late.
Adrian glanced at the time, noted the investigator had already passed the halfway point.
It’s not too late for me. No particular plans this evening.
“Right, Sadie? Just you and me hanging out.”
Great, Rachael texted back, see you in about thirty.
It was closer to forty when Adrian saw the car coming up the hill. But she’d spent the time well, deciding on the plaque, setting out a cheese tray and a carafe of wine.
Sadie waited until Rachael got out of the car, waited until she’d recognized the visitor before she thumped her tail.
“I’m so sorry,” Rachael began, but Adrian waved that away.
“Don’t be. I got everything done I wanted to get done. And I’m about to have a glass of wine. I know you have a long drive back, but unless you’d rather something else, I’d say you’ve earned one.”
Rachael looked at the carafe, let out a sigh. “I’d love one. Thanks. Two fender benders,” she said as she sat. “One breakdown, and traffic stopped dead.”
She took the wine Adrian offered, sat back a moment. She wore amber-tinted sunglasses and a light blue blazer over a white tee.
“You’ve got a little paradise going here.”
“I’m doing my best to maintain it. I’m trying my hand, on my own this year, with a veg garden in the back, and I’m crazy happy I’ve got some tomatoes and peppers coming. And terrified I’ll kill them.”
“Epsom salts, diluted with water.”
“Yes!” Surprised, Adrian laughed. “My grandmother swore by that. You garden?”
“City dweller, so pots and planters. Nothing like a tomato right off the vine. So—”
“Before we start, I need to tell you, and show you. I got another poem this morning.” She took the folder she’d put on the chair beside her on the table. “Postmarked Omaha. I copied the note and the envelope.”
Rachael switched to her reading glasses, read the poem.
“More direct than usual, setting a time frame.”
“Summer, and that’s coming right up. I need to tell you, I reacted.”
Rachael peered over the cheaters. “In what way?”
Adrian simply opened her tablet, cued up the video and, turning it to face Rachael, hit play.
Rachael sipped her wine, watched without comment until the video ended.
“You posted this today.”
“Yes, and on my social media outlets. I’ve scanned the comments a few times, and nothing out of the ordinary so far.”
Rachael nodded, then let her glasses dangle by her chain as she looked directly at Adrian.
“You’re a smart woman, and knew issuing a direct challenge like this could spark an escalation, even a confrontation. That’s why you did it.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not here to issue orders, and can only offer my best advice. I’ll say I wish you’d waited until we’d had this meeting.”
“I’ve waited since I was seventeen. Instead of easing off, it’s gotten worse.”
“That’s true. Since you didn’t wait, we’ll assess on what is. If this video does trigger him into making a threat in the comments on social media, we can track his IP address. Which you knew.”
“Yes. I’m sure he knows that, too, but he could rage post. People do. Even people who aren’t sick and obsessed.”
“Correct, so we’ll monitor closely. I can consult with the agent in charge of your case, nudge her to do the same.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
“Meanwhile, I have a report.” She reached into her bag. “Some progress, and some theories.”
“You went to Pittsburgh.”
“I did. The reporter who broke the story about your parentage relocated there several years ago. He works for a gossip online site.”
“You don’t think he’s behind this?”
“No, and he’s been interviewed since you’ve started receiving the poems. The attack in Georgetown, Jonathan Bennett’s death generated a lot of media attention. Prior to that, your mother, and by connection you, generated some, primarily positive, but some negative, of course. Nothing’s ever all.”
“And some people criticized her for being unmarried, alluded she was promiscuous—which is a tame term for some of it—because she wouldn’t name the father.” Adrian closed her tablet, set it aside. “I didn’t know any of that at the time. After the story broke, after Georgetown, some of those went after her a lot harder. Ugly stuff in some corners. I didn’t know that either because she brought me here, had me stay here until that had died down or away.”
Calm and steady now, Adrian drank some wine. “She shielded me, in her way, and pushed back, pushed harder in her career. Nothing was going to stop her. I resented that once. Now I can admire it.”
“Stories cropped up again, from time to time. This particular reporter, Dennis Browne, tried reviving it, as it had given him a temporary career boost.”
“I know, but those were easier to ignore. She’s such a force, and she just refused to discuss it in interviews. Or really at all. When Lina Rizzo locks a door, it’s all but impossible to break it down.”
“I agree with you, which is why I went to Pittsburgh. She’d locked the door on your biological father, but someone breached it. How and why? I don’t like questions without answers. Is it old, settled business, or is it not? I wanted to find out.”
“And did you? Find out?”
“It’s a lot of years to protect a source, especially when that source has not only dried up but is no longer viable. And I can take angles the police can’t. He’s twice divorced, with three child support payments. His income is, we’ll say, severely diminished. And he likes his bourbon.”
Understanding, Adrian smiled a little. “You bribed him.”
“I did, with your mother’s permission, as she’s paying the freight. A thousand dollars—I had permission to go to five, but he was a cheap date—the thousand opened him up. The bottle of Maker’s Mark made him positively loquacious.”
Since it was there, Rachael spread a little cheese on a paper-thin cracker. “God, this is good. What is it?”
“Rustico with red pepper.”
“Amazing. So after the money and a couple shots of bourbon, I got the whole story. His source was Catherine Bennett.”
“I … I don’t understand.”
“His wife knew about Bennett’s predilection for attractive young coeds. She’d looked the other way, preserving their lifestyle, her family, their standing in the university, the community. But she learned about you. He’d fathered a child, and that, it seems, shook her foundation. From what I can piece together, rather than confronting him, risking divorce, she began to self-medicate—or upped her self-medication. She popped Valium, Xanax, and other drugs to get through it, but there you were, you and your mother. Yoga Baby on the cusp—maybe just over it—of becoming a household brand. She could tolerate the affairs, but not the in-your-face reminder he’d fathered a child outside of the world she’d so carefully maintained.”
“She broke the story,” Adrian mused. “He blamed my mother, me—never himself—but it was his wife who ruined him.”
“She would be the victim, as she saw it. And he’d pay for humiliating her. Your mother would pay. You’d pay. An angry impulse or calculated, I can’t tell you for certain. But she went to Browne. She had names, dates, she gave him names of other women—and he followed up with them, got the pattern. At the time, Bennett was having an affair with another student. A twenty-year-old. Maybe that broke Catherine, I can’t say. But you and your mother were her targets, and the headline. A college professor diddling students—not enough to rattle anyone really, other than those involved. The same professor fathering a child outside his marriage with a woman who’d launched her career with that child? His ticket, Browne thought, to the big time.”
“So rather than leaving him, she decided to destroy us, and him.”
“Hell hath no fury, especially when that fury’s simmered more than a decade. But you and your mother weren’t destroyed. You survived, you thrived. And Jonathan Bennett? Not just destroyed, dead. Dead after attacking a child, two women and a child, his own biological child. So instead of being a stoic, heartbroken victim, she was the wife of a serial philanderer, a vicious, violent drunk, a child abuser. And that light shined back on her, harsh.”
“You think she’s behind this? She’s sending the poems?”
“No, because she died, suicide by pills, nearly fourteen years ago. But you have two half siblings.”
“Oh my God.” She had to stand, to walk, to hug her arms tight.
“Nikki, age thirty-seven; Jonathan Junior, age thirty-four. Do you need a break?”
“No. No. Keep going.”
“I haven’t been able to interview either of them as yet. Junior’s off the grid, and has been for about ten years, when he took his inheritance—considerable, as his mother’s parents were wealthy—and basically vanished. I’m working on that. Nikki is a consultant. She travels to clients to devise business plans, revise current ones, streamline expenses, maximize profits. She’s worked for Ardaro Consultants for fifteen years. She’s in high demand.”
“She travels.”
“Often and country wide.”
“Omaha. The last one was Omaha.”
“She’s scheduled for San Diego, Sante Fe, and Billings on this trip, due to return to her home in Georgetown late next week. I intend to have a chat with her. She has no criminal record, she’s never married, has no children. She lives, apparently alone, in the house where she and her brother grew up. The house her mother’s money bought. She’s described as quiet, hardworking, pleasant. She has no close friends I could find, nor any enemies.”
“Keeps to herself. Isn’t that what they always say?”
“They often do. The brother has a few minor bumps. Drunk and disorderly, DUIs, a couple of assaults, which were dropped. No marriages, no children. He listed the Georgetown house as his residence until ten—nearly eleven years ago. He’s described as unfriendly, unsociable. He’s had a series of jobs, nothing stuck for more than a year, usually less. He did have some friends, and one, a recovering alcoholic, told me that back in the day, he always talked about building a cabin in the woods, maybe by a river or lake, and telling the world to get fucked. He may have done just that. I’m working on it.”
Adrian sat again. “I have to say I don’t think of the Bennetts as half siblings.”
“You’re entitled.”
“There’s a chance, and to me minor, biological connection, and nothing else. You think one of them—and you lean toward the daughter because of her travel—has this grudge against me. Like their mother did.”
“She may very well have helped instill it.”
“Yes, I can see that. And their father died, disgraced, died because my mother protected me, herself, Mimi. So we can be blamed for that. Their mother died, and I guess we could be blamed for that, too. She died not long before the poems started coming.”
“Possibly a psychic break, that final loss. Coupled with the release of your own DVD. But the timing certainly plays into my theory. While I strongly believe one or both of them is responsible for this, I need to conduct more interviews. Because I believe this is more than poems. I was delayed leaving DC because I went to interview another of Bennett’s affairs. She lives in Foggy Bottom. She had the affair, from the time line, about a year before he started one with your mother. She was very forthcoming, and during the course of the interview I asked if she’s received any threats, any anonymous poems. If she’d had anything happen to make her feel threatened, and so on.
“No letters, no phone calls,” Rachael said, taking another cracker. “But she’d moved several years ago because of a break-in and a tragedy. Shortly after her divorce, she’d gone away—impulse with a new boyfriend—for a long weekend, and had her sister stay in her house. Just house-sitting, but mostly to give her sister a change of scene, as she’d recently been downsized out of her job. Someone broke into the house. The sister was shot, multiple times, as she slept. Several items were taken, valuables, in what appeared to be a botched burglary.”
“You don’t think that.”
“No. I made that trip to Foggy Bottom because I’d had a conversation with the mother of another woman whose name was on Catherine’s list—the names she gave to the reporter.”
Absently, Rachael spread cheese on another cracker. “Let me add in that it’s going to take awhile to locate everyone on the list. Marriages, divorces, moving to different locations. In this case, the mother lived in Bethesda, so was easy to reach.
“She knew her daughter had been involved with an older man while in college. A married man. A fling, nothing more. I spoke with the mother, as the woman herself was stabbed to death a few years ago while taking her usual morning hike. Attacked on a trail in Northern California, where she lived with her husband and two sons.”
Very carefully Adrian picked up the bottle of wine, added more to her glass. “They both had affairs with Jon Bennett.”
“Their names were on the list given to the reporter. So whether they did or not, Catherine believed they did. Police wouldn’t have that list, or any reason to connect a shooting death during a break-in in DC with a stabbing death in California. The only link is that the owner of the house where the first victim was shot was a woman, like the second victim, who went to Georgetown University. At different times. I wanted to get this information to you as soon as possible. I’ll start checking the other names on the list right away.”
Adrian took a slow sip of wine. “My mother’s name is on that list.”
“I’ve contacted her, and she’ll take precautions. I can’t tell you there’s no risk to her, but it’s more probable they—let’s use ‘they’ for simplicity—have focused on you. It certainly may be they intend to deal with her at some later point, but the poems come to you, and have all along. They resent you for your very existence. The fact that you were born took something away from them, diminished their standing. And it makes you responsible for their father’s death, for their mother’s eventual suicide. If using this theory, you read over the poems, that blame and resentment is clearly there.”
“Yes,” Adrian agreed. “Yes, it is.”
“More? You’re successful in your field, enjoy some celebrity in that field. You’ve paid no price for the insult of your birth. Add to that, you’re a young, very attractive woman with considerable financial security, and an admirable family legacy. Their legacy is adultery, abuse, suicide, public humiliation.”
