Park answered the door and let a very disgruntled Jackson into his room. Jackson motioned for Dee to close the door, which he did.
“You are a goddamn liar, Park” was the first thing Jackson said.
“About what?” Because Park thought he’d been truthful with Jackson, but he’d been in the closet long enoughthat some lying came naturally to him now. Which was a terrible way to live, if he was honest, but he pushed that aside for now.
Jackson stabbed at his phone’s screen with his finger and then turned the phone around to show Park. “That’s you and the murder victim.”
Park peered at the photo. “Okay.”
“You said you didn’t know her. I can’t mount a defense for you if you’re not honestwith me, and I—”
“Wait, hold on. This is hardly conclusive evidence. She... I still don’t know who she is. I’m campaigning for Senate, Jack. I get my picture taken with people I don’t know all the time. Hell, I posed for, like, forty selfies with people in Buffalo on Saturday, and I’m sure I couldn’t pick any of them out of a lineup.”
“Apparently Zoe Haufman’s father is a big donor toyour campaign. The Haufmans and their daughter came to a number of campaign functions, including the dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria that got a lot of press coverage and some party out in the Hamptons back in August where this photo was taken.”
“Before the primary.”
“Yes, I guess so. Why does that matter?”
Park grunted. “We were doing a lot of events in August. Three or four a week.It was a whirlwind. I don’t remember half of whom I met at them. And a lot of people donated to my campaign.”
Jackson glared. “The cops have this photo, which is how I came to have it. The running theory is that she was your girlfriend and you had her killed.”
“That’s absurd.”
“Is it? The cops found this photo all over the Internet. I did a reverse image search and found it on a coupleof gossip sites, as well as theTimesStyle section report about the party,andit showed up in one of those photo collages inVanity Fair. So not only did you lie, you lied badly.”
Jackson’s fury hit Park like a punch, but Park still didn’t recognize the girl. He wanted to scream, but that tact would just anger Jackson more, so instead he closed his eyes and tried to get a handle on the situation.He thought the name Haufman was familiar, but he couldn’t summon the girl or her father’s face in his memory. “I honestly don’t know who she is. I swear. I think I met her father once at a fund-raiser, and I recognize the name vaguely, but I really think this was one of those photos where she and I happened to be standing near each other at a party when a photographer strolled by and said,‘Hey, get together.’” Park gestured as if he were a party photographer, motioning for Jackson to pose closer to the invisible person standing next to him. “And then we posed and went back to our respective conversations. I didn’t lie about this because I honestly don’t remember her. I feel bad about that.”
Jackson took his phone back and took a deep breath. “Are you sure?”
“Well, she’scertainly not my girlfriend.”
Jackson started pacing, probably contributing to the groove in the rug that Martha had already started. “Okay. Fine.”
“I’m being honest with you, Jack. I know it looks bad, but I swear I’m telling the truth.”
“You swear a lot of things.”
Park threw his hands up. “I don’t know what you want me to tell you. A photo is hardly proof of anything. All itshows is that the dead woman and I were once in the same room. It doesn’t prove I knew her or even that I killed her.” He shook his head. “You believed me before. Why can’t you believe me now?”
Jackson wiped his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Do you get how this looks? It’s hard for me to do my job when the detective in charge of your case shows up in my office with photos like this.I can’t keep insisting you know nothing about the victim when shit like this comes up. And I’m sure more things will come up, things you forgot about or didn’t anticipate would be relevant. And I’m sure you have secrets, things you don’t want to tell me or that you think are not relevant. How the fuck am I supposed to defend a man who lies as part of his profession?”
“I don’t lie.”
“Youlie every goddamn day. You leave your apartment and you go to work and you...you pretend that this essential part ofwho you arejust doesn’t exist. You lie when you let people believe you’re just a bachelor who hasn’t found the right woman yet. And I find myself wondering what else you lied about or if you can even sort out the truth from the lies anymore.”
Park didn’t respond because hefeared Jackson had it right. Instead, he took a slow step toward Jackson, who stood near the foot of the bed. “You said you trusted me, so trust me when I say that I will be completely honest with you, always. There are things I can’t be honest about with the public, or even with most of my campaign team, but I will always,alwaysbe honest with you.”
Jackson dropped his shoulders. “I wantto trust you.”
“Here’s the unvarnished truth. I don’t know that girl. We’ve probably met a few times, but I meet a lot of people. I don’t know her, and I don’t know how she got into my apartment. I don’t know who killed her, nor can I even hazard a guess. In my crazier moments, I think someone from the Thompson team planted the body in my apartment to set me up to take the fall for her murder,but that’s insane, right? All Thompson would have to do to derail my campaign is do a tiny bit of digging into my past. He could out me, and then it would all be over, because there’s no way I’d get the conservative upstate vote if they knew I’m gay, and then the campaign really is over.”
“You really think that?”
“I know it. We did polls.”
Jackson sighed. “Of course you did.”
