Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Natalia
I’m off work today and spend the morning at home, enjoying the solitude. When I’m planning what to have for lunch, I get a text.
It’s from an unknown number, and at first, I decide to just delete it without reading. Then, I think again. Who knows who might be trying to contact me from inside or outside of the underworld?
I tap on my messages icon. It opens, and there is a text from someone named Carla.
Carla: I know who you really are. We should talk.
What does she mean, who I really am? Does she mean she knows I work for the Feds? Does she mean I’m Stepan’s daughter?
Natalia: Who are you and why should I talk with you?
Carla: I work for the Medical Examiner’s Office. I have info that you might be very interested in learning.
I immediately go online and search for the local ME’s office website.
It lists the administrative structure of the organization, but the lower-level positions are not identified, so there’s no way to know if this Carla person is an actual employee of the ME or someone who is trying to scam me, or worse.
Natalia: Send me some credentials, or I can’t trust you.
I wait, and in a few moments, I get another text, this time with a photo of an employee ID on a lanyard. It clearly identifies Carla Fontaine, Technician, Medical Examiner’s Office, Manhattan.
Whoever Carla is and whatever she wants, she is clearly a technician working for the ME.
Natalia: Where do you want to meet, and why do we have to meet in person? Why can’t you just send me the info?
I wait, and finally, the answer comes.
Carla: I want to live. That’s why. I assume you want to as well. Please delete this conversation as soon as it’s over. I know it won’t be truly erased, but this is the best I could do. We can talk when we meet.
Natalia: Where should we meet? When?
Carla: There are some benches across from my office on the greenway. I’ll send you the Google Maps location. How soon can you be there? I have an hour for lunch. We could meet on the greenway.
Natalia: It will take me at least thirty minutes to get to your location.
Carla: Okay. I’ll be sitting on the bench near the gas station under the bridge. I’ll be wearing a lab coat so you can identify me. I also have very pink hair, so it’s pretty hard to miss me. Don’t tell anyone. I don’t want anyone to know I contacted you. I mean it.
Natalia: Okay. I’ll take an Uber and be there asap.
Then, I take a pic of our texts just for posterity and so I can show Harrison when he gets home later tonight, and I delete the texts as Carla suggested.
Of course, someone could find them if they knew how to access deleted texts, but at least they wouldn’t be immediately discoverable by a cop — or someone who shouldn’t know I was meeting with Carla.
Who the hell is she, and why does she want to meet? The only thing I can think of is that she knows something about my parents’ deaths. She works at the ME’s office.
She must know something…
Whatever she knows must be important enough — and dangerous enough — to require secrecy.
Part of me wants to text Harrison and let him know what I’m doing, but I did promise not to tell anyone. I’ll see what Carla has to say, and then I’ll decide. Maybe she just wants to pass on info and not be involved in anything bigger.
I grab my jacket and bag and leave the apartment, sad that I will be out instead of relaxing.
I wonder about what Harrison would think of me meeting a stranger, but I really have no other choice.
Not if she has some info and knows who I really am — whatever that means.
I leave a quick handwritten message on a notepad by the front door just in case Harrison comes home unexpectedly.
and then take the stairs to the main floor.
Outside, the sky is bright, but I can tell by the clouds that rain is in the forecast. I hope it doesn’t rain while I’m out, and a part of me wishes I could ignore that text and block her number.
I feel like it’s not the best place to meet, but I’m too curious to say no.
Hopefully, we will be safe. Many people bike and walk along the greenway.
There are several businesses there, so I figure we will be fine.
I text for an Uber and in a few moments, one arrives.
I’m lucky that there are a lot of people who work near Central Park, and so I hop in and off we go towards the East River and then south along FDR Drive.
We arrive at the location, and after I thank the driver and send a tip, I get out and walk towards the gas station where Carla and I are to meet.
I see her right away — white lab coat, pink hair. She looks to be in her forties, a bit tall and gangly, and looking every inch a medical tech nerd with her glasses, headphones, and cell phone in her face.
She sees me and knows who I am right away as well. She raises her hand hesitantly and gives me a brief wave. I walk over to where she sits and take my place beside her.
“You must be Carla," I say. "Well, here I am. What can I do for you? What can you tell me that I need to hear in person and that you need to maintain secrecy?"
She takes in a deep breath and glances left and right as if she's checking to see how close anyone is to us.
“You must think I'm crazy," she says. "But when you hear what I have to say, you won't think so."
"OK, go ahead, I'm all yours,” I say.
Carla adjusts herself on the bench and opens up her backpack. She removes a file from the interior and opens it. She reads from it briefly and then sighs audibly.
“Read for yourself," she says and hands me the file.
I take it from her and open it up to see a series of documents inside that look like they've come from the police department.
I can see after reading for a moment that they're about the death of my mother and stepfather, and the car accident that took their lives.
"I already know about this," I say and hand the file back to her. "This is nothing new, although I am very upset about it."
“What you may not know is that the investigation into your parents’ death was closed prematurely.
There was research done on the type of car and any recall issues around the brakes.
None was found. In fact, there was research done on the last time your stepfather's FBI car was serviced, and there were no problems with the brakes, which were tested.
So, something happened to the brakes in between the last service, and when it was in the garage, where your stepfather parked before the crash.
I think the brakes were tampered with on purpose and that led to the accident. "
I nod. "I already know about that. I can't tell you how, but I do know.
Let's just say that officials in the FBI know about this, but that it's an operation that is being kept secret for reasons I can't say anything about right now.” I hesitate for a moment, unsure of how much to tell her.
“But I appreciate that you felt this was important and that I needed to know it.
I do know it. It broke my heart. It's bad enough for people to die on the highways without their being anything nefarious to it, but when it's done deliberately, it destroys your faith in people. "
Carla nods. “I don't have a lot of faith in people," she says, her tone derisive.
"I just thought you should know. The name I found of the official involved was Giordano.
I did some research on the name and man's position, and he’s a mid-level bureaucrat in the Highway Patrol involved in the investigation, but he also has distant family members in the Italian mafia.
But I have also uncovered other information that might interest you. "
Of course, I already knew about Giordano, but her mention of other information surprises me. I turned to her and frown. "What new information? About what?"
Carla reaches into her backpack and pulls out another file, and it looks completely different from the one she handed me earlier. It's a larger size and a different colour, like it's from a different organization.
“Here, read this," she says. "You should know that I also work for a genetic genealogy company part-time. I came across your name because your mother was searching for her other children. When I saw that she had died in a car accident, I checked on her files at the medical examiner’s office.
I saw that she was married to a Russian, a very prominent Russian man, before divorcing him and marrying your stepfather.
Anytime someone with Russian mafia ties dies, we all become suspicious.
I'm sorry to admit it, but I started digging. Even telling you that could get me fired.” She turns to face me, her eyes wide, her expression intense.
“More than that, it could get me in big trouble, maybe even jail time.
So please, whatever you do with this, don't reveal where you got it from and who you got it from. I look after my ailing mother. I'm her only source of income besides disability. If I went to jail, she'd have to go into one of those horrible, low-budget nursing homes, and she would be very unhappy. I don’t want to do that to her after everything she’s done for me.”
I open the file and read for a few moments. Yes, it does appear that my mother was searching the databases for genetic matches. The description given was that she had given up two children for adoption when she was young, before she married my father, and was hoping to find them.
That means I have some other half-siblings somewhere out there. Two of them. And based on what the files say, a boy and a girl.
“You've got quite a scandal-plagued family," Carla says.
"I hope this is useful. As you can see, I did find some genetic matches for you with two people in the United States.
You can keep that file. It's a duplicate.
If you want any help digging into those two people, I'd be happy to help, but only if you keep my name out of it, just in case anyone asks you where you got this information. "
"But who will I say gave this information to me? It's not like I could get it on my own."
“You can duplicate the search, so you will have a record of your own that you can use.
That way, someone else will be involved and not me.
Just say you were looking for relatives after your mother died who were in North America, and that your mother may have been married before she married your father, and you're interested in knowing if you have any siblings.
That way, the person will search for people with genetic profiles that could be a close relative to you. "
I read over the file for a moment, unable to process what I've just heard and read. Carla confirmed the fact that my parents’ case was closed prematurely, almost as if the Feds didn't want the details to be revealed.
I'm sure it was because they were working to take down people tied to my mother and the case itself.
"Is there anything else?" I ask as I put the file into my own bag.
“Just be careful,” Carla says, and she exhales heavily as if she doesn't really want to bring this up. “The FBI official who closed the case on your parents’ crash — Giordano. He has ties, familial ties, to the Italian mafia, and they have no hesitation about cleaning up messes and silencing people who may be a threat. Remember that.”
I laugh ruefully. “Don’t I already know that. As to his ties to the mafia, who doesn't have ties to some branch of the mafia? If you have money and power in New York City, the mafia is involved in some way."
“Ain't that the truth?" Carla says with a laugh.
I agree with her sentiment, but the truth is anything but funny.
“Again, thanks for this," I say and stand up. “I guess I should let you go back to work."
Carla stands and glances around again nervously. We're alone on this section of the walkway, and nobody looks suspicious that I can see at the gas station a few dozen feet away.
"Yes, I should get back to work," she says.
She turns to me and looks in my eyes; her expression is very serious, her dark eyes intense.
“Please, please, whatever you do, don't mention my name to anyone if you're looking into any of these matters or anything I've given you.
And please don't ever message me again. If you want to get in touch with me, I belong to a Reddit group called Family Tree Sleuths. My name is Vesta82. If you need any help, contact me through that group. Now I gotta go.”
"Thanks again," I say as she walks away. She turns and looks back at me. And walks backward for a few steps. "I hope you find out what you need to know, and I hope it doesn't break your heart."
Then she walks across the crosswalk to the other side of the highway under the bridge and disappears from my sight.
I walk back to where I was dropped off by the Uber and call another one.
My mind is whirling at the news. Not only did Carla confirm that my parents’ death was not an accident, but she also confirmed the name of the FBI official who closed the investigation and that he had family ties to the Italian mafia.
Most importantly, I may have siblings somewhere in America that my mother was trying to find before she died.
As I wait for my Uber to arrive, I wonder what Harrison will think about my meeting. I'm not sure he'll be happy that I met with a stranger without letting him know about it, because even I know, given my background and what's going on in our lives, that is dangerous.
Still, I don't like the idea of having to pass everything I do through Harrison.
Not only is that impossible, but I am my own woman, and I must make my own decisions in consultation with him, of course, when it affects him.
But this is all on me. My siblings that I don't know about. Who are they? Who is their father?
And what happened to my mother that she had two children out of wedlock and gave them both up for adoption?
While I'm waiting, I open the file and look at the details. I check the dates that my mother indicated that the children were born, and gasp when I realize that she was only fourteen years old at the time of the first baby’s birth.
She was fifteen when the second baby was born.
Two babies in two years! Who the hell impregnated her? Was it a fifteen-year-old boy that she was in love with? Or was it something more sinister?
That's what I have to find out.
Given her background, I have a very bad feeling about this.