MARY CLARK - Piece of My Heart

“What about the friend you were celebrating with earlier that night, before the confrontation with Mr. Pratt? Perhaps he could shed some light about your demeanor that evening.”

Gunther squinted, as if confused by the question. “I was at the bar alone. I had been planning to meet some other Vassar students who were in the city for break, but never linked up with them. I headed down to the Village to find some fun on my own. Little did I know that the decision would ruin my life.”

According to Samantha Finney, Clarissa the waitress had said Gunther arrived with another man, but there was no way to know the truth at this point. This checklist of names was actually only a lead-in to the next question—the one that mattered the most.

“And finally,” Ryan asked, “we’d like to know who might serve as character references on your behalf.”

“Meaning what?”

“People who could say what type of person you were eighteen years ago, but also anyone close to you now. You say you’ve been a model prisoner. We think our viewers would like to hear from the people who know you best, to get a better sense of who you are as a person.”

If Gunther was involved in kidnapping Johnny, this was his opportunity to put them in touch with a third party who might continue a potential trade for his freedom, outside the confines of the prison.

“My mother went into a nursing home four years ago with dementia,” he said, shoulders slumping. “They wouldn’t even let me out to say good-bye to her while she still recognized her son. I’d probably say my lawyer is the person who knows me best at this point.” He nodded in Tracy’s direction. Laurie knew that a lawyer could not serve as a formal witness on behalf of her own client.

“No one else?” Ryan asked. “Maybe an old friend from the neighborhood, or even a former prisoner you’ve stayed in touch with whom we could interview?”

Come on , Laurie thought, take the bait Point us in the right direction.

“Sorry,” Gunther said with a shrug, “it’s not exactly easy to keep or make friends from behind bars.”

Ryan’s face fell as he looked to Laurie to make the call. He knew it, too. They hadn’t gotten what they needed.

“I think that’s all we have for today,” she said.

“You sure?” he asked. “Not like I’ve got big plans for the rest of my day.” Those twinkling eyes and dry smile again. She could see why so many media types had fallen for him.

“All good.” She felt a chill as she walked behind his chair to rap her knuckles on the door, indicating to the guard that they were finished.

As she heard a key enter the lock, Gunther spoke again. “By the way, Ms. Moran, my thoughts and prayers are with your fiancé’s nephew and your entire family.”

She nearly jumped at the direct mention of Johnny’s disappearance. “What did you say?”

“I’m a bit of a news junkie. Five different newspapers, a mix of local and national, every single day. The Post and the Daily News have certainly done a good job getting his picture out everywhere. He looks like a sweet boy. I hope he’s found safely, and soon.”

Laurie’s mind raced, silently shuffling through the press coverage she had been monitoring. Several of the stories noted that Johnny had been in the Hamptons for the birthday party of his uncle, newly confirmed federal judge Alex Buckley, but so far they had mentioned neither Laurie nor her father. At the very least, Gunther’s comment revealed that he had made the connection. But was this his way of letting her know he could lead them to Johnny?

She felt no closer to the truth.

“Let’s just say that the entire family is eager to get him home—no matter what.”

She searched Gunther’s face for some glimmer of a reaction as the prison guard re-shackled him. He did not turn to look at her again as he was escorted from the room.

Nick led the way toward the prison exit, lugging his field camera in a cross-slung leather bag.

Laurie found herself moving slowly, not wanting to climb into the studio van without a better lead.

She stopped walking as they approached the check-in window and turned toward Ryan at her side. “Is it just me, or did that not go well?”

“Not just you,” Ryan said. “It’s everything we already knew, but in his own words, which, frankly, sounded pretty good. And you know I like your father, but Gunther put some points on the board. We’re going to need to look at the timing between Gunther’s case and your dad’s promotion to the Public Information Office.”

Laurie pressed her hand to her forehead. There had to be something else they could do before leaving. She suddenly looked up. “The common folk digs,” she said.

Ryan’s expression was confused.

“Gunther remarked that he was on a sojourn to the luxury legal team suites, nicer than the meeting areas for the riffraff .”

It only took Ryan a beat to catch up to her train of thought. “Meaning, he has other visitors.”

Ten minutes later, they had a name: Summer Carver. She first showed up in the guest log about a year earlier, but over the last six months, she had only rarely missed the twice-a-week visitation hours that Gunther was allowed.

“So much for not having any friends except his lawyer,” Ryan said dryly.

As they waited for a corrections official to print out a computer scan of the woman’s New York driver’s license, they saw Tracy Mahoney standing in the alcove just inside the prison entrance. She turned away and held up her phone as if making a call, but Laurie was certain the lawyer had been watching them.

Tuesday, July 21

Day Seven

Chapter 37

The next morning, Laurie stood in her office, before three whiteboards containing everything they knew so far about Johnny’s disappearance, Darren Gunther and the murder of Lou Finney, and the possible connections between the two. Jerry, Grace, and Ryan sat at the white oval conference table, taking notes as she summarized key points.

She drew a circle in red ink around Summer Carver’s name. “If Gunther has someone acting as his eyes, ears, and legs on the ground while he’s in prison, we think Summer Carver is the most likely candidate. She is his only visitor at the prison other than his lawyer and, on occasion, his editor.”

She drew a second, smaller circle around Tracy Mahoney’s name. “There’s some possibility that his defense lawyer plays a complicit role in facilitating communications, but we think it’s unlikely she does any dirty work herself.” Tracy had seen them speaking to the prison guard at the check-in counter. It was certainly possible that the lawyer would have notified Summer by now that their production team was aware of her contacts with Gunther. The purpose of this meeting was to prepare before making any attempt to contact Summer directly.

“Jerry and I got an early start this morning looking into Summer’s social media, and hit pay dirt. Jerry, I’m going to let you spell out what we found.”

With only the four of them, Laurie would have simply had them huddle around her computer. Jerry, however, had been eager to connect his laptop to a projector so he could present what they had found on a larger screen.

As Laurie took a seat, a Facebook profile for Summer Carver appeared on a pull-down screen at the head of the conference table. In the profile image, a lanky young woman with long black wavy hair and pale skin held a fluffy white kitten up to her strawberry-freckled nose. “So Summer’s only social media presence is on Facebook. The first thing we noticed is that her only public posts—meaning we can see them even though we aren’t her online ‘friends’—are shared posts from the Darren Gunther Is Innocent page. We also know that she is active on Darren Gunther’s advocacy page, which isn’t surprising given that she visits him in prison.”