“I ran away that time because I was being bullied. Kids would see me and shout, ‘Ira’s poor, his mom’s a whore.’ I had to look up ‘whore’ in the dictionary at school. When you’re a child, the life you have is due to the decisions of other people, specifically the adults around you. And it’s hard to escape that because you’re literally eight years old. So you lie where you can to protect yourself, to disappear into a crowd and not be found. My adults were trying to find an Ira, not a Sam.” Doyle looked down, rubbed his hands together. “Anyway, a lot of runaways would point to sexual abuse or rejection of their sexuality as other reasons to leave home, so I guess you’re onto something with the propensity for aliases in these cases and their correlation to sexual secrecy.”
Larkin was silent. He’d already hazarded a fairly accurate guess as to the sort of childhood Doyle had survived from the clues in his casual conversation to nonanswers, but it was different—no it washeartbreaking—obtaining an iota of that trauma in Doyle’s own words. It was gut-wrenching to hear the clinical tone Doyle adopted when discussing his past, because the wound was still so fresh that if he touched it, pressed it, it’d crack open and bleed. But what was shattering for Larkin was that he knew—he knew—Doyle’s story only got worse from here.
“I don’t want to make a big deal out of this,” Doyle said.
“May I say two things.”
Doyle hesitated, nodded.
“I’m grateful you trusted me.” Larkin moved around the table and noticed the way Doyle straightened his posture, like he was pulling on a suit of too heavy armor. Larkin didn’t touch him in the way he knew Doyle usually preferred, instead letting him be. “And none of what you endured was your fault.”
“Okay.”
Doyle was displaying pretty blatant and prolonged nonverbal indicators of shame: eyes downcast, head turned away, quick to put an end to the conversation. He wasn’t ready to acknowledge the damage. He wasn’t ready to reach out for help, for healing, and Larkin understood trauma well enough to know that forcing someone into any sort of therapy before they were ready was ineffectual.
“Okay,” Larkin echoed.
Doyle cleared his throat. “Let’s go back to Esther Haycox. You think she might be using a false name?”
Larkin leaned one hip against the worktable and slid a hand into his trouser pocket. “We’re touching on something that goes beyond a lap dance or interactive peep show. The porn industry at the time—the agents, the movies, the live shows, the clubs—it ushered in a mindset, anexpectation, that women’s bodies were at the beck and call of men’s desires, that those fantasies could be,would be, real. Times Square preyed on young, often underage girls who used false IDs to get a foot in the door of what they thought would one day put them on stage or in the movies, and instead they’re part of a live fuckfest, front-row tickets to her naked body only a few bucks, or she’s on the street, going to fleabag hotels with strangers and enduring God only knows what because her pimp will punish her if she comes back short on cash.”
“And because they used false IDs, they’re stuck.”
“Beyond drug addiction, threats of violence, or fear of what family would think of them if they returned home, yes,” Larkin said. “It’s not that I think Esther isn’t Esther because of a lack of arrests. It’s because I can’t findanythingon an Esther Haycox but for a rather suspicious obituary.”
Doyle’s brows rose in response.
Larkin turned, put a hand on the laptop, and spun it toward Doyle. “This one notes a date of death as October 4, 1982, which would align with when Esther was reported missing and thus used as the legally recognized date of death.” Larkin clicked and brought up a second window. “This is the only other obit under the name Esther Haycox in New York City that agrees with our estimated date of birth. It belongs to a six-year-old girl who died an accidental death in a house fire in 1950.” Larkin looked at Doyle. “How did that book you mentioned say you should go about obtaining a new name.”
Doyle blew out a breath. “It recommends to search obituaries of children. When you find one of an appropriate age and sex, you write to the local county clerk simply pretending to be them and asking for a certified copy of ‘your’ birth certificate,” he explained. “It was as simple as that back then. And suddenly, you have a real and legal form of identification, and you can use it to obtain a driver’s license, social security card, passport—you name it. The book suggests the use of children because they won’t have government IDs, they won’t be married, they won’t be registered voters, so the likelihood of being caught is drastically reduced.”
Larkin moved around the worktable, returning to his timeline. He notated her disappearance before saying, “Esther didn’t just buy a fake ID on Broadway to get her start in the industry. She assumed a whole new identity, which leads me to suspect she wasn’t looking for stardom, but to escape something.”
“Or someone.”
Larkin nodded.
“And the sender is all about having you identify the nameless.”
“Who Esther was, before she was Esther Haycox, will be a vital clue,” Larkin determined before saying with the slightest sense of overwhelm, “Jesus Christ. I have so many phone calls to make….”
A quiet knock on the office door interrupted them.
Senior Artist Craig Bailey poked his head inside, glanced toward the worktable, and said in a jaunty tone, “I thought I heard your voice, Doyle.”
Doyle turned on the stool and offered a big smile. “Morning, Craig.”
“Good morning, good morning,” Bailey answered as he stepped into the office. He was a tall and wiry fiftysomething man who dressed like a nerdy high school teacher. Today’s tie to complement the ill-fitting trousers was blue and red and printed with little racehorses. The edge of his thick, carpet-pile mustache glistened with wet after he took a sip of coffee from his mug. Bailey looked at Larkin, at Doyle, then said, “If you’re here early with this guy, you must have an interesting project.”
“Just a facial reconstruction of a mummified vic,” Doyle explained.
Larkin returned his attention to the computer screen, listening as Bailey walked toward the worktable and Doyle dragged the bust forward by its base, likely for his boss to inspect.
“Sounds like a nice challenge….” Bailey began. “She’s a kid?”
Larkin glanced from the corner of his eye. Bailey was closely studying the face Doyle had been painstakingly bringing back to life.
“ME estimated her age to be between fifteen and seventeen,” Doyle confirmed. “So I left a bit of baby fat.” He tapped the cheeks with one of his tools, saying, “Here”—and then the chin—“and here.”
