Simply Lies

Chapter 15

The next morning Gibson pulled the card out she had been given and punched in the number. She had made up her mind. She didn’t believe she could just walk away from this case, regardless of the peril it might bring her and her kids, for the simple reason that Clarisse knew she was involved. And there was no telling what that woman was actually up to or what she really wanted. She could have killed Langhorne for all Gibson knew. And the woman might have a beef with Gibson somehow, which had led her to seek out Gibson in the first place.

She knows where I live. She knows about my kids. She knows everything about me, apparently. She is probably dangerous as hell. So if I have to be stuck in this nightmare, I need some reinforcements. Some official reinforcements.

The voice answered two beats later. “Sullivan.”

“It’s Mickey Gibson.”

“Ms. Gibson, what can I do for you?”

“Please, just make it Mickey. I wanted to thank you for calling my boss and putting in a good word for me.”

“Well, it was an unusual situation, and I’m not sure how I would have handled it.”

Sullivan knew nothing of the conversations she’d had with the woman who had initially called herself Arlene Robinson. Or Gibson’s trip back to Stormfield to get the prints off the mailbox. Or her now knowing Pottinger’s true identity.

And while part of her wanted to tell Sullivan some or all of this, her gut was not inclined to do so. And she almost always listened to her gut. Here, it was pretty easy because Sullivan could charge her with obstruction of, and interfering with, a police investigation. And she did not care to find out what the view was like from the other side of the bars.

“So how’s the case going?”

“It’s going,” he said carefully.

“It occurred to me that Pottinger might not be the man’s real name,” she began.

“Really, why is that, I wonder?”

“I Googled him. And really found nothing. Like he didn’t exist until recently. Now, he might be a recluse, but a rich guy like that? There has to be some online footprint. Even Wikipedia. But there was nothing.”

“We shouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“I totally understand.”

“I’m going to hang up now.”

“If I were still a cop I’d probably do the same thing.”

“Probably?”

“My father was a beat cop his whole career. But he did some investigating, too. It’s not like they have detectives for every little thing. Anyway, he always taught me that you use whatever resources and assets you have at hand to solve a case.”

“He did, did he?”

“He did.”

“And you consider yourself such an asset and/or resource?” said Sullivan.

“I do, actually. And I’d be happy to work with you. And if whatever I’m involved in goes sideways or I need some backup, you guys would be there.”

Please, please, please.

“If things go sideways call 911.”

“Look, I see no reason why we can’t share resources. We might solve this thing faster.”

“I have plenty of resources at my disposal.”

“And if you ever need more, I’m here,” she said.

“Right, thanks.”

He clicked off and she put the phone down. Her heart was beating fast and she wasn’t quite sure why.

Yes you are. You tried to guilt-shame a cop into having your back. Your father would shit a brick. Especially considering that you’re technically still a suspect in Pottinger’s murder. But it was worth a shot to possibly get some coverage for yourself and the kids. Now what do you do? Sit here as an open target waiting for the ax to fall? Or do something? Anything.

That, she knew, was a choice in theory only.

Even though she had already done a search she went online and put in the name Daniel Pottinger once more. But now her search was taking her to the dark web, as it often did with her work for ProEye; some debtors she chased were also criminals. And even the legit ones often used shady devices to hide their money. You sleep with scum, if only digitally, to find other scum.

She dialed up some sites she had used before, trying to dig up dirt on Daniel Pottinger the tusk-trafficking, drug-dealing, biomedical-horse-trading, Sudan-terrorist-money-laundering douchebag.

Nothing.

Okay, that’ll take some more time and will have to wait. Let’s try some low-hanging fruit.

She Googled Harry Langhorne. A great many articles from decades ago came up on her screen. She read through them, but they didn’t tell her much more than her father already had. She did gaze at a grainy photo of Langhorne from the late 1980s. He had a thin face, high cheekbones, long, wavy hair, and glasses that made his eyes frog-like. She was pretty certain it was the same man she had found at Stormfield, even with all the intervening years and the fact that Langhorne’s face had been decomposing for a while. She didn’t like his look in the picture. She had liked it even less in death.

She finally found an article that talked about Langhorne’s family. Langhorne had married Geraldine Mercer when he was in his thirties. A few years later they had a son named Douglas Langhorne, and a year later a daughter, Francine. She found pictures of all of them. Geraldine was a lovely woman who looked like the unhappiest person in the world. Douglas was around eight in the photo. He seemed big for his age, a hulking towhead, and not overly bright looking. Gibson scolded herself for being so judgmental. Sometimes Tommy didn’t look so smart, either. And at age three the child would be expected to wipe himself better than he apparently could.

But I digress.

Francine looked intense and guarded even as a little girl. In her wide eyes Gibson thought she could see depths of complex thoughts competing for attention. Way too much going on for someone that young.

She wrote this information down and then searched for more on the family.

She found nothing really of significance. Back then there were no armies of people adding info to the internet every millisecond of every day, even though they were now playing a spirited game of catch-up on that score. You would be hard-pressed to name a topic that you couldn’t find something out about online. There was a YouTube video about every conceivable thing a human had ever done or would ever attempt to do.

She had repaired the internal guts of her outdoor water faucets by watching one DIY video put up by a very helpful fellow in Illinois.

Yeah, what a thrill that had been. But it saved me paying a plumber like three hundred bucks.

But there also weren’t any other in-depth newspaper articles on the family, and what had happened to them. It was like they had simply vanished.

They might have changed their names. In fact, it was probable. The Feds might have put them all into WITSEC, or Witness Protection. If so, she would probably never find them.

But then how did Langhorne end up dead at Stormfield under the name Daniel Pottinger? Had he abandoned his family? Were they all dead?

There was no way for her to answer that. At least not right now.

She refocused on Clarisse.

Until I find out her real name. And I will find it, if it’s the last thing I ever do.

She was under no illusions that Clarisse’s business with the man was aboveboard. Innocent people didn’t play the kind of elaborate mind games she did. And they went to the police when finding a dead body unless they had guilty secrets of their own to keep hidden.

On the phone Clarisse had said that some of the mobster descendants could be men or women. That was the clue Gibson thought she had unwittingly let slip.

Is she referring to herself? Is she somehow connected to Langhorne and the Jersey mob from way back? She sounded way too young for that, but maybe she’s a child of one of them? Grandchild, even?

Gibson really believed nothing Clarisse had told her. But there was usually an element of truth mixed in with a lie, at least for the really excellent liars like Clarisse undoubtedly was.

And there had been something else the woman had said. But Gibson couldn’t think of it right now.

A clue? As Clarisse had earlier said, somewhat comically. Yes, it might be a clue.

If I can think of it.