13. Eleventh Avenue Freak-Out

Eleventh Avenue Freak-Out

On the way to the taxi line at JFK, my phone buzzes with an incoming call.

A blocked number shows up on the screen. And I pick up to a voice I don't recognize.

"Nora? It's Meredith Cooper."

Meredith Cooper, who found my father on the beach. The EMT. The wife. I look up at Sam and put the phone on speaker, between us, so he can hear too.

"Meredith, I really appreciate the call back—"

"Sure, happy to help. But I should warn you. We are in Tuscany with very poor cell service so I may lose you."

Her voice is coming in crackly—and I'm missing every few words. I start to say thank you for trying to help our father, for being there even when no one could. But either she doesn't hear me through the poor connection, or she doesn't have time for that. Because she starts talking over me.

"I went over it with my husband," she says. "Both of us tried to recall anything specific about the jogger. We were focused on your father, to be honest. But we both remember that he was tall and Caucasian. He was wearing like these green cargo pants and a sweatshirt. Something like that."

Sam mouths, "For jogging?" Just as I have the same thought.

"And you had never seen him before?" I ask.

"No. Never. We were only there for a couple of months, but it's a small community…"

"You usually see the same people?"

"Well, we walked our dog pretty much the same time every night. People have their habits."

I lock eyes with Sam, who is staring back at me, like this proves something. At the very least, it proves that this man—who Detective O'Brien and the police haven't managed to track down—wasn't usually there at eight thirty at night.

"Do you think if you had a photograph, it could help?" I ask. "Would you potentially recognize him that way?"

"Maybe," she says. "I don't know. It was pretty dark out."

Sam mimes holding a phone to his own ear, mouths, "Dad's phone."

I nod at him, nod at the reminder.

"Can I ask you just one more thing?" I say. "Do you happen to remember seeing my father's cell phone?"

"No, I don't actually…" She pauses, considers. "I'm pretty sure it wasn't in his jacket pocket. When I tried to get to his chest, I think I would have felt it."

"That's helpful. Thank you. Sorry that's a weird question."

"Don't be. There aren't weird questions when you're grieving," she says.

That penetrates. The truth of it. And the kindness. Then while I sit there breathless, the connection cuts out, the line clicking off, and Meredith Cooper is gone.

The Starrett-Lehigh Building—home to Noone Properties—has always been one of my favorite buildings in West Chelsea.

It's a lauded building, particularly in neuroarchitecture circles, for its expressionistic design, which you rarely see in industrial buildings. The space creates a mood, an emotionality, pulling you in with horizonal ribbon windows, alternating between brick and concrete spandrels, large setbacks, incredible brickwork. All of the design choices move together to become the thing you can only feel when you walk inside. How, despite all the reasons a large New York City building shouldn't feel personal, this one has figured out how to comfortably hold you.

Noone Properties headquarters is on the two top floors. It has an open office plan with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the West Side Highway and the Hudson River just beyond it. The late-day sun, loose and white, coating that water gently.

We're sitting in our father's office, which is still intact, like he just walked out for the day. Not like it's been more than a month since he's stepped inside here. There's a large conference table in the middle of the room, an array of hotelier awards still framed on the walls, his desktop computer powered on. Sam and I hover in front of it.

Uncle Joe's East Coast assistant is pacing just outside the office door, short and fierce, and failing to hide that she wishes we would hurry this along. I don't blame her for that. From her refusal to stop peering at us through the glass, it feels safe to assume that Joe expects a full report on what we've done while we are here.

Sam keeps driving through the files on our father's desktop anyway. He is searching for anything related to Cece or the sale while we wait for Nate, the Noone Properties IT guy. Nate is supposed to be coming back in with answers about our father's cell phone, about what backups are in the cloud, the whereabouts of his missing laptop.

Sam shakes his head. "No paper trail in any of these emails," he says. "Not in any internal memos I'm finding, either."

He leans closer to the screen.

"Nothing really seems to have been downloaded from his phone. No messages have been shared, no personal photographs or texts I can find."

I'm not entirely surprised to hear this. From how Sam described the system, it seemed to me that anything we'd see on our father's desktop would have been on Sam's laptop.

"Okay, so this is not great…" Nate says.

I look up and see Nate walking back into the office, tapping on his tablet. He takes a seat across the desk from us.

"The last time your father's phone pinged on a cell tower was eighteen days ago in Santa Barbara, California."

Nate turns his tablet so we can see for ourselves.

Santa Barbara, California. That's close to Carpinteria, but not Carpinteria. Why was our father's phone there? And why was it findable eighteen days ago—almost two weeks after we lost him? If the phone had broken during our father's fall or had ended up in the ocean, it would have stopped being findable that night. That means it either survived the fall and someone removed it from him—or someone removed it from Windbreak.

Regardless, it seems, someone has it who shouldn't. Sam sits up, and I wonder if he realizes the same thing.

"So, if his phone was still online after he died, is there any way to access that activity?" I ask.

"Theoretically, assuming there was any. But that is going to involve law enforcement and warrants and all sorts of things above my pay grade."

"How about his laptop?" Sam says.

"Not on the premises," he says. "And I just confirmed with security that it's not in his New York apartment, either."

His laptop and his phone—the only two pieces of hardware that may be able to shed any light here—are the only two things missing from his seemingly completely intact office. That can't be a coincidence. It can't be a coincidence that anything of value (anything he deemed the most private) was nowhere to be found.

"Shouldn't they be backed up in the cloud somewhere?" I ask.

"They should be, yes," Nate says. "If you can go back in time and tell your father to authorize saving anything that way. Alternative storage opportunities were disengaged at his personal request."

"So you're saying his phone wasn't backed up anywhere?" Sam asks.

"I can't say that it's not backed up anywhere. But in terms of company storage, that is correct. For his phone and his laptop, he asked that all external storage and file sharing to the company network be suspended."

That seems intentional. It must be intentional, his wanting to keep certain things just for himself. Which is when I shift back to it: Sam on the plane with his company laptop, talking about the things he could and couldn't find on it. And I start to wonder if maybe it can be found a different way.

"Just for his own laptop?" I ask.

Nate meets my eyes. "What's that?"

"Was file sharing turned off just for his own personal computer or any other computer in the network?"

"It seems that laptops five through ten are all connected to the network. That includes Tommy's and yours, Sam." He looks up and nods in Sam's direction. Then he continues searching. "But, yes, actually, that's correct, it was not just your father's laptop where storage backup and file sharing were disabled from the company network."

"Who else's?" I ask.

"Okay… it was turned off for laptop issues one, two, three, and four," he says. "Laptop one was issued to your father. Two to Joe, three belonged to the general counsel, and four belonged to…"

I get there at the same time Sam does.

"Grace," Sam says.

I turn to Sam. "What if those computers were connected to each other? They could have access to his files."

Sam motions toward Nate. "Is Grace's laptop still in the company's possession?"

"No. Her laptop was delivered to her apartment along with all her personal belongings—"

"But that's not really characterized as personal, is it?" Sam says. "That's company property."

"Well, apparently your father wasn't particularly interested in making that distinction," he says. "But Terry would be more helpful on the specifics."

Sam turns back to me. "Terry was Grace's personal assistant. She retired after Grace passed away."

Nate taps on his device. "Says here Terry's in Burlington, Vermont. No email address, but I got a phone number and a physical address."

Sam stands up. "Would you text me her contact info? Thanks. Number and address."

I look up at him. "Please tell me we aren't going to Vermont."

"Depends on if she picks up," he says.

Sam starts walking to the door. Nate and I watch him go, and he looks back over at me.

"He's joking, right?" Nate asks.

My own phone buzzes, and I look down to see a text message from Elliot.

You okay?

I haven't called him back. Not Elliot, not Jack either, for that matter. I shoot Elliot a quick text that I'll call him a little later. But I owe Jack more than that kind of message. Jack, who I haven't spoken to except briefly in the car on the way to Santa Ynez. Twenty-four hours ago. A lifetime ago.

I sigh, stand up too. "I'm going with maybe," I say.