and had read in the articles in Jake’s file. It went on:
The NYPD and the news media would like you to believe that the Lyalls’ Albanian landlord is responsible for their disappearance, that the Albanian mob executed them for their “grandfathered” rent-controlled apartment. Isn’t that just like America? Shove all our problems off on the third world? But the reality is: very few people have the resources and the technology required to hack into the New York Times servers and wipe data. Her voicemail? Okay, amateur-time. Just a log-in and a password and you’re golden. But to access her e-mail and her database, not just on her box but the backups on the servers? Nearly impossible. Unless you’re the CIA or the FBI, or some other nefarious government agency.
Some of us think Myra stumbled onto something she wasn’t supposed to know. We know for sure that the last piece she published was about Project Rescue (talk about the ultimate government cover-up; did anyone ever get prosecuted for that? Hundreds, maybe thousands of underprivileged kids abducted from their homes and SOLD to wealthy families. And no one’s even in prison??? Doesn’t anyone think that’s fucked up?)
I had to cringe here, wondering if he’d mention my father or Max, but he didn’t. It was weird to hear someone talk about Project Rescue like that. I’d never really thought of it as a conspiracy and a cover-up, but I guess I could see his point.
We know for sure that Myra received a phone call before she left on the Friday prior to her disappearance, that she left the office in a rush. Her assistant described her as “excited and a little nervous.” And that’s the last time anyone at the Times saw her.
If Myra had backed up her notes on a disk and hidden it somewhere (like I’m ALWAYS advising to do, people, when you’re working on something sensitive), we might have more to go on. Anyone with more information on Myra or with insights and theories, get in touch with me. I want to help. But for crying out loud, be careful who you talk to, what you say, and how you say it. For secure communication, call me at the following number and we’ll arrange a meeting.
I scanned through the rest of his pages. There were articles about the flu shot, Gulf War syndrome and depleted uranium, the dangers of website cookies, SARS, reality television, and a hackers hall of fame (using screen names only, of course). According to Grant, pretty much everything that is remotely disturbing about the world can be traced back to the “evil empire,” the United States federal government. He had an infectious writing style, and by the time I’d finished scanning the site, I was starting to agree with him.
I got up from my computer and walked over to the window to think. Something was bothering me. I know: Take your pick, right? I headed back into my office and sifted through some papers on my desk until I found a small pink notebook where I log in telephone messages. I flipped through the pages and found where I’d written down Myra Lyall’s name, number, date, and time of her calls. Jenna told me that Myra had put her article to bed over a month ago. The last call was just over two and a half weeks ago, a couple of days before she and her husband disappeared, according to Dylan Grace. If she hadn’t called me about the article she was writing on Project Rescue victims, then what?
EVEN THOUGH MAX had been dead for years, his apartment still sat untouched as he’d left it. My father refused to sell it, though the monthly maintenance was ridiculous. After Max’s death we both used to visit it like some people visit a grave, to remember, to feel close.
I used to go to Max’s place after he died to smell his clothes. I’d stand in his closet. It was a giant affair, bigger than my bedroom at home. With beautiful wood cabinets and a granite-topped island containing drawers for socks, underwear, and jewelry, it looked more like the designer men’s department at Barneys than anyone’s closet. I’d walk among the long rows of silk and wool gabardine, touch my fingers to the fabric, and breathe in the scent of those suits. I could smell him there-not just the trace remains of his cologne still clinging to the suit jackets, but something else. Something uniquely Max. It hurt me and comforted me simultaneously, the rainbow of silk ties, the neatly arranged boxes of shoes, the orderly parade of shirts in muted colors-white, gray, blue-one hundred percent cotton only, no starch. Anything else irritated the skin on his neck.
“It’s just stuff,” Zack, my ex-boyfriend and would-be murderer, used to say when I’d go up there. “It has no meaning now that he’s gone.” He couldn’t understand why I’d fall asleep on the couch among the million pictures of our family, feel safe and connected to a happier past when everyone was together.
Of course, that was before, when the loss of him was a hollow through the middle of me that I thought would never fill again. That was before I knew he was my father.
As I walked through the doors that midmorning, after my conversation with Jenna, it wasn’t to comfort myself with memory. There was no comfort to be had there any longer. My sadness for Max had waxed and gone cold. Now in my heart there was only anger and so many unanswered questions. Sadness was a place I couldn’t afford; it buckled the knees and weakened resolve. And I had a sense that I’d been a puddle of myself for too long. It was making me soft.
I suspected anything that might have offered some clue as to who Max had been-who he’d really been-was long gone. I’d discovered over a year ago that the lawyers had taken all his files and date books (which he kept like journals), and his computer. Valuables like watches and jewelry, and all other personal effects, had gone to my father and mother. So I didn’t know what I was looking for exactly. I just started opening drawers and cupboards, sifting through old books, looking behind photographs.
But the drawers and file cabinets were empty. There were no secret safes in the floor or behind pictures. Everything was just as it had been when he was alive, in perfect order…except that it was all dead. Void of the energy of a life being lived, of vital paperwork and important files. Gone.
Something I’d always noticed about Max while he was alive was his fastidiousness. His sock drawer, with each pair precisely folded in careful rows, organized by color, made me think about how he was always straightening- the pictures on the wall, the silverware on the table, the arrangements of objects on his desk or dresser. It used to drive my mother crazy, probably because she was equally particular. She seemed to think it was some kind of competition when he came to the house and rearranged the table she had set, fussing with the centerpiece or aligning the silverware even more precisely.
Of course, Max always had a staff of people following him around, cleaning up after him, but he held those people to such exacting standards that turnover was always high. Personal assistants, maids, cooks, came and went, a parade of polite and distant strangers, always nervous around Max, always replaced in a matter of weeks or months. Only Clara, who acted as maid and part-time cook and sometimes babysitter for me and Ace, stayed through the years, never seemed rattled by Max or his demands. What did this say about Max? I didn’t know. It was just something that came to mind as I sifted through the apartment. Maybe it didn’t mean anything. Maybe nothing did.
After a while, frustrated and unsatisfied, I sat on Max’s bed, a gigantic king swathed in 1,000-count Egyptian cotton sheets and a rich chocolate-brown raw silk comforter, piled high with coordinating shams and throw pillows. I leaned back against the plush surface and tried to think about what I was doing there, what I was looking for, and what I intended to do once I found it.
After a minute, I got up again and walked over to the recessed shelving in the opposite wall that held a large flat-screen television, another legion of photographs (mainly of me), objects he’d collected in his travels around the world-a jade elephant, a large Buddha, some tall giraffes carved delicately in a deep black wood. My eyes fell on a familiar object, a hideous pottery ashtray formed by a child’s fingers-a pinch pot, I think we called them in kindergarten. It was painted in a medley of colors-purple, hot pink, evergreen, orange. In the center, I had painted, I LOVE MY UNCEL MAX, and my name was carved on the underside. I didn’t remember making it but I did remember it always being on Max’s desk in his study. I wondered how it had wound up in here. I lifted the piece of pottery and held it in my hand, felt a wave of intense sadness. As I was about to put it back down, I saw that it had sat on top of a small keyhole. I quickly searched the shelving for a drawer or some clue as to what might open if a key was inserted, but it seemed to be a keyhole to nothing. I resisted the urge to hurl the little piece of pottery against the wall.
I walked back over to the bed and flopped myself down on it.
That’s when I smelled it. The lightest scent of male cologne. Not a sense memory of Max but an actual scent
