AC05 - Death Mask (31 page)

‘Let’s hope they don’t try to bury any information we find that could help Kirsten’s case.’

‘I won’t let that happen,’ Ethan assured her.

Inside the limousine, Anya phoned Harrison Leske but the call went to voicemail. She left a message asking him to call her.

Yawning, she stretched her legs in the back seat; she sank back into the leather seats, exhausted.

‘You should rest on the way. It could be a while, especially if there’s congestion.’

Normally, Anya would have argued that she was fine, but as the car turned into the Lincoln Tunnel to cross the Hudson River, traffic slowed and she gave in to the tiredness and closed her eyes. Her sleep pattern was still in a different time zone. Images of her smiling son appeared in her mind as she faded into the liminal state between sleep and wakefulness.

In the background she could faintly hear Ethan tapping on the keys of his laptop. The sun warming her window nudged her further into somnolence.

When she woke, they were driving through tree-lined streets.

She sat up and licked her dry lips. ‘Where are we?’

‘New Jersey. We’re not far from Plainfield.’

She checked her watch; she had been asleep for just over an hour.

Ethan reached into his bag and pulled out a fresh bottle of water. ‘The air con tends to dry you out.’

She unscrewed the lid with a nod of thanks and looked at
the two-storey houses set back from the road, with green grass in abundance. ‘Please don’t tell me I snored.’

He smiled and the skin around his eyes crinkled. ‘No, but you do talk in your sleep.’

Anya felt her heart gallop and blood rush to her cheeks.

Ethan smiled even more warmly. ‘You said my name.’

Anya face flushed. ‘Oh. I didn’t. Did I?’ What had she said? She tried to read his face.

‘No, but you must have thought about me, otherwise you wouldn’t have blushed like that.’

She crossed her arms and looked out the window, embarrassed that he had caught her out.

Knowing he had done a background check on her before the league employed her, she felt vulnerable knowing Ethan knew personal details about her when she knew very little about him.

‘Where do you actually live?’ she asked. He stayed at the hotel but supposedly came from New York.

‘Here and there. I crash at a friend’s place some of the time. She’s a wildlife photographer and is usually away with her boyfriend on some exotic safari.’

He leant forward and pressed the button to close the glass partition between driver and passengers. She assumed it rendered their conversation private.

‘Can I ask you something?’

Suddenly Anya felt even more self-conscious.

‘How can you stand dealing with other people’s loss and pain when you went through your own? I mean, with your sister’s disappearance.’

It was no surprise he knew about Miriam. It still made the news every few years, particularly when Anya was involved in a prominent case.

‘That can’t have been easy. Nor can it be easy living without knowing what happened to her.’

Anya sipped the water and looked out the window. ‘It’s hardest on my parents. They divorced. Mum still sets a place at the
table every night for Miriam. It’s been more than thirty years …’ There was little else to say. Miriam was taken by someone at a football game and hadn’t been seen since.

He rubbed his chin. ‘I’m sorry. No one should have to go through that. I’m trying to work out why you do what you do.’

‘It’s not complicated. Families deserve closure. They deserve to know what happened to someone they loved. If I can help in any way, it makes my job worthwhile. And it beats sitting around all day brooding.’

‘I could try and look into it, off the record.’

Anya appreciated the offer, but they had employed private investigators before and discovered nothing.

She deflected the conversation. ‘My turn. I have a personal question for you.’

‘Is this truth or dare?’ He snapped the laptop shut.

She would not be put off. ‘Why did you become so riled when I mentioned the gene testing for players?’

It was his turn to look out the window. ‘It’s a civil rights issue I happen to feel strongly about. I’m also in favour of free speech and the constitutional right to remain silent.’

Anya stared at him. ‘Do I need to do a background search on you?’

He looked at her, then down at his lap. ‘I don’t want anyone else to know, and frankly I can’t believe I’m even telling you, but my father died from Huntington’s disease.’

She took a silent breath. It was a devastating condition caused by a defective gene, which led to progressive loss of brain function. There was little anyone could do to prevent the loss of muscle co-ordination that eventually led to trouble swallowing and speaking. Even more difficult was the emotional changes and eventual dementia a person suffered. With the dominant gene, Ethan had a fifty percent chance of developing the disease. There was no cure.

‘I’m sorry.’ She locked gazes with him. ‘Have you been tested?’

‘It’s a no-win situation. You either have the test and know
you’re dying, or hope there’s a fifty percent chance you won’t get it.’

There was another option. ‘What if you are free of the gene? You wouldn’t have to live your life under that massive cloud of uncertainty.’

The car slowed and turned into Forest Avenue.

‘No one knows what’s around the corner. At least this way I have hope, just like your mother. I don’t think I could live without that.’

He lowered the glass partition. ‘Is this the address I gave you?’

‘Yes, Mr Rye, this is the McKenzies’ house. I just called as you asked, and they are home.’

The pair were greeted at the door by a middle-aged woman, with larger than average cherry lips and thick, well-cut hair. She wore black pants and a matching long-sleeved top with wide white cuffs on the end of bell-bottom sleeves. The outfit disguised the woman’s apple shape. A long silver chain around her neck completed the outfit.

‘You have a beautiful home,’ Anya commented, entering the lower storey and admiring the polished wooden floors. ‘Have you lived here long?’

‘Four years this November. Our son bought it for us, after he won his first college trophy.’

By the pride in her voice, anyone would have thought her son had single-handedly won every game for the team.

‘He’s a wonderful son, and such a good boy. A mother couldn’t ask for better,’ she added.

‘The family couldn’t be any prouder.’ The father entered the room and shook their hands. His hand was large, coarse and callused. He was, or had been, accustomed to physical work.

From the foyer to the living area, framed photos of Liam adorned every available surface. In one photo he looked younger, and was with two other children, a boy and a girl. Ethan homed in on that one.

‘How many children do you have?’

The father’s chest deflated. ‘Three, only we lost our eldest
son a couple of years ago. Our daughter still lives in Minnesota, with my sister. We’re taking care of her son while she finishes high school.’

So, Anya thought, the daughter either dropped out, or had the baby while still at school. But that didn’t explain the paucity of photos. Sometimes grief leads people to rid their homes of constant reminders of their lost one, but she found it difficult to believe that a mother would remove almost all images of her late child and her living daughter. Liam seemed to be a favourite, even at home.

‘When did he first show an aptitude for football?’ Ethan enquired.

The father beamed. ‘From the age of three that boy could kick a ball, catch, and run fast. He’d win all his races at school, then in middle school he tried out for football. Pretty soon he was playing up a couple of years. And that was before he really grew. The coach had him marked as special right from the start. Why, he was the first one in our family to go past high school. Then he got seen by some scouts and before we knew it he was being offered college scholarships. And not just any, Ivy League scholarships. I come from a long line of men who work hard – mechanics, labourers, we’re good with our hands. Liam turned that skill into a dream job.’

‘Gamma!’ A toddler ran into the room and threw himself around his grandmother’s leg. Mrs McKenzie patted the top of his head and told him to go back on the verandah and draw something on the blackboard. By the looks of his dirt-stained hands and knees, that wasn’t what he’d been doing. Judging by the smell, he’d soiled his nappy as well. He was at the stage where he wanted to be independent but had yet to be toilet-trained. Anya wouldn’t have let her son play outside alone at such a young age.

‘Ooeee, Pearl, what’ve you been feeding that boy? Why, it makes a man’s eyes water.’

Mrs McKenzie pursed her lips. ‘That’d be the meatloaf. The one you had two plates of. Jonah, we’re going to change that
diaper right this minute.’ She took the child’s hand and turned to her husband. ‘Vernon, would you like to offer our visitors a drink? There’s homemade lemonade on a tray in the kitchen.’

The trio left Ethan and Anya alone for a moment. ‘The eldest son was killed when a drug deal went wrong,’ Ethan said quietly. ‘He’d been in trouble with the police for years, even served a couple of years for assaults and burglary. I gather the parents put all their energies into Liam and the eldest son missed out.’

Mr McKenzie returned with a tray of drinks and placed them on the coffee table. Anya collected her glass and asked if she could help the grandmother. To be honest, she enjoyed being around children and thought giving Ethan a chance to talk to the father alone might be productive.

Jonah waddled with a giant grin into the corridor.

‘Can I see where you play outside?’

Two big brown eyes looked up and he waved his hand for her to follow. ‘They’re a handful,’ Anya said as Mrs McKenzie appeared from the room.

‘I’m getting too old for all this.’ The grandmother looked weary.

‘If you like, I’ll take him outside and see if I can wear him out. Then maybe he’ll have a sleep and give you a break.’

Outside, Jonah ran for a ball and kicked it on the second attempt. Anya walked over and kicked it back, much to the little boy’s delight. Mrs McKenzie followed.

‘You must really miss Liam when he’s away.’

‘He’s a good boy, he looks so much smaller on the television. He sends me things every week, and I send back homemade cookies. They’re his favourites, since before he could even walk. He says they make him think of home.’

‘Does he send you presents every week?’

Anya had been wondering how to broach the subject of the parcels, but the mother had brought it up, as if she were proud of her son’s attention to her.

‘Oh, not what some would call presents, but I enjoy getting them. Sometimes he sends his washing. I know this sounds
old-fashioned, but I love doing it for him, and he says it’s like smelling home when he gets his things back. He gets terrible nosebleeds since when he was a kid, so sometimes his sheets are dirty. I wash them in ice cold water and they’re as good as new.’

The sheets were incriminating but only circumstantial evidence. Once washed, it would be impossible to prove they were the same ones used that night in the hotel.

Jonah chased the ball down, stopped and ran at it again, this time falling over as he extended his leg. Without a hint of tears, he jumped up, stared the ball down and made contact with his foot again. This time the ball rolled straight to Anya.

‘Good kick!’ she praised, and turned around to hear his grandmother applauding.

‘Just like your Uncle Liam,’ Grandma smiled. ‘You keep practising and you’ll be just like him.’ She picked up the hose and began watering the rose bushes. The hose leaked from the nozzle, leaving puddles down on the ground where she stood. She didn’t seem to notice.

Anya kicked the ball back to Jonah and moved closer to the roses.

‘The team owners have asked us to look into the accusations of sexual assault made against your son and a number of his team mates.’

The older woman scratched her shoulder and sighed. ‘That woman’s just another of those gold-diggers after my boy. They chase him across the country and make no bones about what they’re after. The way they throw themselves at him! Why, it’s shameless. He’s red-blooded and you can’t expect him to resist all temptation. The good Lord knows how hard he’s worked to get where he is and he deserves to have some fun. But these women don’t want fun. They’re out to bring him down. Get whatever they can out of him, however they can. Did you know that woman from Connecticut tried to blackmail Liam to withdraw assault charges? Now you tell me, what sort of woman cries about being attacked then demands money?’

Jonah ran around, kicking the ball into the fence before
reclaiming it and taking aim at his new-found partner. Anya trapped the ball and pushed it back in his direction.

She recalled the agent mentioning the case and that it was decided Liam had, in fact, saved the woman’s life.

‘Did you know her personally?’

‘We met her once, I think. Liam liked her to start with, he was always on the phone or texting her. The woman was clearly obsessed with him. And when he broke things off, she went crazy with a knife. If Liam hadn’t stepped in to stop her, who knows what she would have done to herself?’

Mrs McKenzie made a good point. Assault victims did not normally demand money in return for dropping charges. If criminal charges failed, then a woman might seek compensation through the civil court – not necessarily for the money, but for acknowledgement that the man, or men, had hurt her. From what she knew, this assault case was unusual from the beginning. Perhaps McKenzie was a target for disturbed women. Film and television actors sometimes had to take out restraining orders against overzealous fans.

Jonah ran, chasing the ball into the bush near the fence where his grandmother had just been. After squatting down, he manoeuvred the ball out with his hand and pushed it away.

‘No! Jonah!’ Mrs McKenzie yelled.

The little boy slipped in the muddy puddle left by the hose. His hands and trousers were mud-streaked.