Simply Lies

Chapter 9

“Are you ready to talk calmly now?” the woman said.

“I was talking calmly last time and you hung up on me,” replied Gibson a little testily. “But I am ready to talk, and listen to what you have to say.”

“Good. Do the police know the cause of death yet?”

“Again, they have no reason to share that with me. In fact, I asked and they refused.”

“Can you ask again?”

“Why?”

“It could be critical. It could be instructive, like a clue. Cops like clues, right?”

“Okay, I’ll see what I can do.”

“Have you told the local police about me?”’

“No. I’m keeping it to myself for now.”

“Good, because it might unduly complicate things if you do let them know.”

“They’re complicated enough. You mentioned Miami and business. Can you tell me anything else? I need something to go on if I’m going to make any progress. You want me to help you, so you need to help me. I hope you can see that.”

“You’re very manipulative,” she replied.

Gibson wanted to scream out, I’m manipulative? Instead she said, “Just the cop in me. But I do need some information, otherwise I’m stuck in neutral.”

“What do you want to know?”

“First, is Daniel Pottinger the man’s real name?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because there is really nothing on the guy online. Just stuff that could be fabricated.”

“Not everyone bares their soul online.”

“Preaching to the choir on that one, but my question is still hanging out there.”

“Dan was secretive,” she said cautiously. “He didn’t like people knowing his business.”

“So maybe he had a fake identity then?”

“I knew him only as Dan Pottinger. If he had a different identity it was before my time.”

“Okay, were you in Miami with him?”

“For a while.”

“How long ago?”

“Years.”

“How long did you two work together?” asked Gibson.

“Not long enough. He taught me a lot.”

“When did you learn he had moved to Virginia and bought Stormfield?”

“Recently. As I said, he communicated with me and told me to visit him there. I wish I had gotten to him before whoever killed him did.”

Well, that’s quite the self-serving statement. “Before then, how long had it been since you had heard from him?”

“Why does that matter?” the woman asked.

“I’m just trying to establish some basic facts and timelines here.”

“What you need to establish is how he died.”

“But for the police to share with me, I need something of value to barter with them.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“That’s okay. Together, we can get there,” replied Gibson encouragingly.

“Our interests are probably not perfectly aligned.”

“That never stopped people from working together before. And you reached out to me. Can you at least give me a hint as to what business you two were involved in?”

The line went dead again.

On impulse Gibson threw the phone across the room. But then she rushed over, picked it up, and hit the redial button. It rang and rang. Finally she clicked off.

That evening, after Silva had left, Gibson got to be a mom again. She made dinner for the kids and they played in the living room for about an hour. This usually involved Gibson’s giving the kids rides on her back, which wasn’t great for her spine, and then reading to them or letting them toss a ball back and forth. She tried to teach Tommy how to dribble a basketball, but his coordination just wasn’t there yet. Tommy also had a toy computer that he liked to peck on while his sister kept pestering him for a turn.

Tommy cracked silly jokes and said things that made Darby howl with laughter, and that, in turn, made Gibson laugh, too. This was the best part of being a mom. Just spending time with her kids. No agenda, no to-do list, no vomit hurling, or tears spilling, just... fun.

Then will come the teenage years when I’ll have to stop being a friend and really become a parent and lay down the law.

Gibson thought of the stupid shit she had done as a teen, which had driven her parents crazy with worry, and caused her dad’s hair to gray prematurely, or so the family lore went. She looked at her own kids. Slow down, don’t grow up so fast. I don’t want white hair in my thirties.

She put them to bed after reading them another story about a kindly farm animal that helped her friends get out of trouble.

I could use a friend like that, thought Gibson as she closed the book and put it on the shelf.

She was about to leave after turning off the light, but then Gibson lingered by the door, the moonlight from the window illuminating the sleeping forms of her kids. It was a perfect vision of peace and security in an imperfect and often violent world.

The dead Daniel Pottinger in his secret little room.

The mysterious lying lady on the phone.

Gibson’s entanglement in something she couldn’t understand.

She felt like a little girl again, alone, and afraid of unseen dangers lurking for her. As a single woman and a cop she had felt equipped to take on anything. As a mother of two little kids with her athletic and cop days behind her, she felt small and unsure and vulnerable.

She walked downstairs and called her father.

Rick Rogers answered on the second ring and said in his naturally gruff voice, “I was wondering when you were going to call, Mick.”

“Why?”

“Your mother told me some police detective was at your house that you had business with. And before that you had her come and babysit on the spur of the moment. What’s going on?”

Gibson told him about the call from Arlene Robinson, the journey to Stormfield, finding the body of Pottinger, meeting with Detective Wilson Sullivan, and then the revelation that she had been duped by the very same Arlene Robinson.

“And now she’s calling me on this phone that she or someone else left on my front porch.”

“You really need to let this guy Sullivan know about those calls, honey.”

“If I sic Sullivan on her I might lose the only shot I have at solving this sucker.”

“First of all, it’s not your job to solve this sucker. You’re not a cop anymore. And, second, you’ve got two little kids who depend on you. So let the people with the badges and guns handle this and you go back to your nerdy computer stuff.”

The way he said this last part made Gibson’s face flush. Her father had been the most vocal critic of her ex-husband. He had lectured his daughter over and over that the man was a scumbag and she should never, ever consider marrying him.

And I didn’t listen to him. I sided with the guy who ended up breaking my heart.

She knew this had hurt her father deeply, because they had always been close. She didn’t know if it was because she was his first child, or because their personalities were similar — everyone had called her a chip off the old block. Growing up, she had confided in her dad far more than in her mother, telling him things that were intimate and sometimes embarrassing. And her father had taken it all in stride and never betrayed her confidences. As a cop he had no doubt seen far worse, and he understood how imperfect the world and those inhabiting it were. And to his credit, after being proved right about her ex-husband, her father had never once said, I told you so. Though his criticisms had been delivered in more subtle ways.

But in speaking with him now, she wondered if he held it against her for quitting the police force and becoming, basically, a computer geek looking for bounty.

“I know that makes the most sense,” she began. “And I hope you know I would never do anything to put my kids in danger.”

“Then you’re going to follow my advice?”

“I’m not going to actively investigate this case, but I want to let it play out for a bit, see where it goes.”

“You may not like where it goes. This person sounds manipulative and slick. I worked with the fraud division for a couple of years. It made me disgusted with my fellow human beings. The ones who committed the fraud and the ones who, despite all the clear evidence to the contrary, refused to accept that they were being duped.”

Like me and my ex, thought Gibson, who also wondered if this was another subtle dig from her father. “I know, Dad. And if it starts to go sideways, I’ll go to the cops. I promise.”

“Just to be clear, my advice is for you to go to the cops now.”

“Okay, okay. Hey, I got some prints that I think are Pottinger’s.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t think that’s his real name. I’d like to know who he really is.”

“How are you getting them run through the system? The outfit you work for?”

“No. Just somebody I know from the old days.”

“I thought you said you weren’t going to actively investigate this case?”

“Running prints is not exactly active.”

“Yeah, sure it isn’t.”

They said their goodbyes and Gibson slowly put down the phone.

He’s right, Mick. You need to drop this thing, right now.

But they knew where she lived. They were on her front porch.

Do I have a choice to drop it?

And then the other phone rang.