“I’m sure you tried your best not to disparage the choices her mother made as a younger woman.”
“I laid out the truth. That I was told she was dead. That I was denied any choice for myself about a relationship with her. That her mother lied to both of us. Her mother told her I was a loser and a flake who didn’t want anything to do with either of them.”
Was it a lie if it had been the truth fifteen years earlier? Joann was so proud of what she thought was her close relationship with her daughter.
“You’re telling me all of this about yourself, sir, but I can’t help but notice you haven’t asked yet why I’m asking so many questions about your daughter.”
“I don’t figure it’s my place to question the authority of a police officer.”
“I didn’t invite you to challenge my authority. I’d think that a father who cared enough about his daughter to track her down halfway across the country might be alarmed when a police officer came around asking questions about her.”
“‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in and adhere to and trust in and rely on God; believe in and adhere to and trust in and rely also on Me.’ John 14:1.”
“What exactly do you mean to say to me, sir?”
Hardy smiled at him as if he were a patient man waiting for a child to tie a shoe. “I no longer try to anticipate obstacles.”
“When was the last time you spoke to Becca?”
“I’m not entirely certain.”
“Take a guess.”
“Maybe a week ago?”
“You met with her?”
“I spoke with her.”
“You suddenly seem very careful about your words, sir. Did you speak with her face-to-face? On the phone? E-mail?”
“By phone.”
“The phone you gave her so Joann wouldn’t know you had forged a relationship with her daughter?”
“
“I assume you’re aware that your daughter has been reported missing.”
Morhart saw the man’s eyes shift up, then left to right, as if he were reading to himself mentally. “I saw the story in the newspaper yesterday.”
“And you didn’t think your recent reemergence was sufficiently relevant to warrant a phone call to the police?”
“I have been in contact with Becca for two months, so your attribution of cause and effect does not strike me as particularly rational. I have been worried about Becca, certainly. I have called her number to no avail. And I have not stopped praying for her. But, no, I did not see how a phone call to the police could help the situation. It would only ensure that her mother would prevent Becca from contacting me once she returns.”
“You sound confident that she’ll return.”
“‘Cast your burden on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never allow the consistently righteous to be moved.’ Psalm 55: 22.”
“And what would the Lord say about the fact that a man was murdered yesterday at a place of business you just happened to be protesting?”
“The police have already questioned me about that. I assured them that my people and I were uninvolved. On the other hand, ‘A man who stiffens his neck after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed-without remedy.’ Proverbs 29:1.”
“So the man deserved it, is what you’re saying?”
There was that patient smile again.
“One more question before you go back to saving the world, Reverend. Those city police who talked to you about the murder-did you happen to tell them your daughter was missing?”
“I surely don’t see the connection, Detective.”
Back in his truck, Morhart cranked the heater before dialing the NYPD, asking to speak to the detective assigned to the homicide at the Highline Gallery the previous morning. Life definitely was different in the big city. Turns out the case was assigned to two detectives: John Shannon and Willie Danes, out of the Thirteenth Precinct.
“You spent the afternoon with the reverend, huh? He quote you any scripture?”
Willie Danes was a big man with big hands, a big head, and a roll of neck fat above his collar. He was eyeing the half-eaten pastrami sandwich on his desktop, so Morhart knew he should make his visit short.
“I got more preaching on a SoHo sidewalk today than I’ve had the last three Christmases put together.” He reminded Danes again why he had called. “I don’t want to step on any toes, but it seems like when one man’s name comes up in two different criminal investigations, we ought to at least exchange information.”
“Makes sense to me. We looked at Hardy right away. Trouble is, we got a street-level security camera showing Hardy walking into the rathole he’s staying at in Chinatown around ten o’clock Wednesday night and not coming out again until nine the next morning. The ME says our vic died around six or seven a.m. Hardy’s in the clear.”
“I keep coming back to the fact that we’ve got one guy linking my missing girl to your dead body, both events going down within a few days of each other.”
“Some people have shitty luck.”
“I read that Hardy’s church was protesting the gallery over some naked pictures?”
“The stuff seemed pretty tame by today’s standards, but yeah, there was some S &M imagery, things a guy like Hardy would find offensive. It wouldn’t have been much of a story, except Hardy’s people claimed underage models were used in the photographs. A claim like that should have been easy for the gallery to clear up, but all they offered was radio silence. All of a sudden, Hardy’s got a media hit on his hands, then we’ve got a dead body.”
“What age kids?”
“Can’t say for sure it was a kid at all, but postpuberty for sure. The artist’s Web site has been pulled down. Tell you the truth, we can’t even confirm the artist ever existed. Why?”
“Becca, my missing girl? She was getting hassled by some of the popular kids at school recently about some naked pictures of herself.”
“Sexting, huh? I tell you, as the father of two girls, that shit makes me wish I’d had sons. So you’re telling me that your case and my case not only have George Hardy connecting them, but now we’ve got this photograph angle, as well?”
“Plus my understanding is that Hardy didn’t mention having a missing daughter when you all reached out to him about this murder. I mean, your newly found daughter suddenly disappears, wouldn’t you be talking about that to any cop you could? I’m telling you, Hardy was holding something back from me. I hope you trust me on that.”
Danes didn’t know him from a hole in the ground, so Morhart knew he was being summed up when Danes held his gaze. “Fuck. You got some fingerprints from this girl of yours?”
“Becca Stevenson. I sure do.”
“All right. Send ’em to me. We’ll check ’em against the ones we pulled from the gallery. Better send those pictures you were talking about, too. We’ll see if they match up with our so-called art.”
Morhart left the Thirteenth Precinct knowing that his trip into the city hadn’t been wasted.
Ten minutes after Jason Morhart emerged from the Lincoln Tunnel, Detective Willie Danes’s phone rang. He swallowed the final bite of his pastrami sandwich before answering. The caller’s name wasn’t familiar, but his voice brightened when she said she was getting back to him from the secretary of state’s office about the incorporation research he had asked for.
“Yes, that’s right. On ITH. The stock is held by a trust, but I was hoping to find a name associated with the original incorporation in 1985.”
“I should probably file a worker’s comp claim for all the dust I inhaled, but I did find the original incorporation
