Lisa Unger - Sliver Of Truth

“That’s quite a theory,” I said.

“It’s just, you know, get a bunch of reporters and IT people together over a few beers and you can’t believe the stuff we come up with,” she said with a little laugh. “Those IT guys are all conspiracy theorists at heart.”

She went on a bit about Grant and how she suspected he’d been writing code in his head while they were making love, how his idea of a good time was a box of Twinkies and a nineteen-inch flat-screen monitor. She mentioned his website again and I jotted it down: www.isanyonepayingattention.com. I let her go on, giggled with her where appropriate, made the expected affirming noises, not wanting to seem overeager for more information on Myra Lyall.

I segued back to that topic awkwardly, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Any other wild theories about Myra?”

“Hmm…I guess the only other thing I heard was that she got some kind of anonymous tip that she followed up on a few days before she disappeared.”

“What kind of a tip?”

“I don’t know. According to her assistant, she got some e-mail-or was it a phone call?-that sent her skating from the office. That’s as much as anyone knows, I think. All her e-mail, even her notebooks-”

“Are gone,” I finished for her.

We were both quiet for a second and I could hear her other line ringing in the background, the staccato of her fingers on a keyboard.

“Hey, you want me to keep you posted?” she said. “If I hear anything else?”

“That would be great, Jenna. Also, can I have Grant’s contact info? I’m doing an article on computer crimes. I’d love to ask him a few questions.”

She hesitated a second. “Sure,” she said. “That doesn’t sound like your usual beat.”

“I’m branching out these days. Trying to broaden the scope of my writing, you know?”

She gave me his information. Before she hung up, she said, “Hey, don’t tell him any of the things I said about him, okay?”

“Never,” I assured her.

We hung up and I thought about our conversation as I poured myself another cup of coffee and walked over to my window. Then I returned to my computer and visited Grant’s website. A flash intro read bold white on a black screen: Is anyone paying attention? Another screen followed: The federal government is fucking with us. A third screen: And we sit around watching Survivor, eating pizza, just letting it all happen? Wake up! The screen started flashing. It’s time for a revolution. The flash intro ended and the home page opened. It was heavy on the blacks and reds, laid out to look like a newspaper page. The center headline read: WHERE IS MYRA LYALL???

The article recounted the known details of Myra and Allen Lyall’s disappearance, things I had already been told 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.