You can see in real time how Silva’s face distorts. It seems you were the one catching her unaware this time. “Clark told you that?”
“About his relation with Ashley,” you confess. “She and I always suspected there was a fourth.”
“I’ll have to have a nice talk to him about how things work.” She locks the door, huffing. “Yes. Everything about Marvin Wright is true.”
“So he was the one wearing Tessa.”
“More than that.” She moves away, returning shortly with the pen case. “He sealed himself in it.”
“How?”
She switches the clip out of place and shows you the pen. “With this.”
“So... That’s supposed to seal people inside skins?”
“One of its functions, anyways. It’s also what we use as the ‘neuralyzer’.” You’re startled and amazed by the reveal. A pen that can erase memories and seal people in skins? “Seems the counterfeits can only do one of the functions.”
“Clark told me he was a judge.”
“You’re not one to read the news, don’t you?” She chuckles, giving you a baffled stare. “Weren’t you supposed to be on your school newspaper or something?”
You’re about to question how she knows it, but you know she has her ways. “Yeah, but--”
“It was big news, Dave. Marvin Wright had ties with various organized crime groups – they were paying him to keep their big honchos out of prison. Other than that, his record was flawless – enough to become one of the state’s Supreme Court justices.”
“Clark told me about that last bit.”
“Well, when they discovered everything, it all fell down. Lots of cases had to be revised. His assets were confiscated and he was disbarred. The Mafia was furious with him. And soon enough, they found him dead – autopsy and all.”
“But how...?” You stop as you recall how you’re here, and David Anderson’s with his family. “The green pen.”
“Which tells what he knows. He must’ve cloned his skin and set him loose, then hide inside someone else.”
“But why Tessa? And... if it’s true, why screw up with Ashley’s life?”
“That’s a story I only got bits and pieces.” She chuckles, reacting to your baffled stare. “Yeah, I don’t always know everything.”
“I told Clark that.”
“See? You’re a natural.” She unlocks the door and shouts. “Clark, could you get me the dossiers of Marvin and Tessa Wright?”
“Why?”
“Gotta tell my double about them if she doesn’t wanna fuck up again.”
Shortly after receiving the two folders, she hands one of them to you. The first thing you see is the image of a stern, aged man, dressed in the black robes of a judge. It’s very hard to see his resemblance to Ashley, but there’s a sign of Barbara’s hard look. “That’s Marvin Frederick Wright.”
“Why wouldn’t Ashley recognize him?”
She doubts at first, but reveals the truth nonetheless. “Ashley wasn’t there when we did the sting.”
You scornfully glare at her. “That was you under Trevor’s skin. But didn’t ‘Ashley’ said--"
“The brown pen doesn’t work unless you’re in contact with the skin.”
“But you said you had notes.”
“How long would have taken you to question him enough to make a profile? Besides – never wondered why I have a cloned skin of hers?”
“Figured you did that once you showed me the green pen, but--”
“But didn’t know when we made the switch,” she finishes your expression with a grin. “When we brought her, she wanted to help with the investigation but wasn’t willing to participate.”
“Figures.”
“I was counting on that, though. You were more important, since you knew how to use the pens – had you decided not to follow, Clark or I would’ve gone as her.”
“So he knows about them?”
“Yes, and that I’m not from the FBI. You know more secrets than he does, though.”
“I see... So, back then, you were Ashley. Who was your double?”
She grins, pointing at the door. “Clark. But I had to mind-wipe him afterwards.”
That leaves you with more questions than answers. “We should talk about that later. What about judge Wright?”
“Right.” She flips the pages, containing various reports and a death certificate, complete with an autopsy report. “Judge Wright's supporters were the local Mafia families – the Donatos, the di Santinos, amongst others. He fancied himself as a mediator, keeping them in check.”
“Did it work?”
“There’s a reason why he was in line to become a justice, kid. He had a small organization of his own – corrupt cops, corrupt bailiffs, a cadre of informants... Dickson County was the safest place for a good while.”
Dickson’s the county next to us, you recall.
“Unfortunately, that wouldn’t last forever. Renato, son of the di Santino family capo – didn't like a stranger having so much power, so he outed him to the county exec council.”
“Tarnishing his reputation.”
“Exactly.” She flips the pages to copies of news articles, starting with a scathing opinion piece. “Tell me you know about Buck Smithers.”
“Uh... yeah.” That would be Archibald “Buck” Smithers, political commentator, often invited to various shows for his brutal critique.
“Smithers buried him. Wright tried to do damage control but it was too late. The investigation went underway, and his allies easily betrayed him.”
“I think I get the rest.” You flip to the last articles, seeing the news of his death. The autopsy speaks of a gruesome fate for the late judge, but that only tells you half of the story – for, as you now learned, he’s alive. “Why Tessa, though?”
She flips to one article while opening Tessa’s dossier. “Marvin Wright married Tessa Londini over thirty years ago. She was related to her brother, Gerald Wright--”
“Who I assume is Ashley’s real father.”
“Yes, but not how you think. Let’s just say Marvin was a bit jealous of his brother. Together, they had Barbara Elizabeth and Cassandra Francesca, but after the latter’s birth, she filed for a divorce.”
“Must’ve been bad.”
She pointed at a divorce certificate inside Tessa’s dossier, then at a report in Marvin’s own. “I believe she knew about his activities and decided to move away.”
You check the reason for divorce – adultery – and make an educated guess. “But judge Wright didn’t cheat on her, right?”
“It was the only way to get financial support for herself and her daughters. He wasn’t public figure by then, so they agreed to keep it under wraps.”
“But he never forgave her for that.”
“Indeed. That separation allowed him to preside over the case of Ashley Denise Wright vs. Trevor Joseph Lachlan.”
“The sexual assault case.” You hum as more pieces of the puzzle fall into place. “That’s why he knew Trevor.”
“What’s strange is that he didn’t ask to recuse himself from the case. He had motives – Ashley's his adoptive daughter, after all – but the case was good optics for him.”
“That explains Trevor. What about the other two? Why would he allow his own daughters to be replaced?”
“Judge Wright presided over the case of one Theodore Ross Marquand, for a couple misdemeanors – possession of illegal substances, mostly. He found no reason to add intention of selling said substances and let him off. Allegedly, Mr. Marquand promised to reform.”
“But he ended up leading judge Wright’s drug empire.”
“Precisely. As for Mr. Vossler... We don’t know a lot, but it seems he goes by a very unique handle.” She points at screenshots for a website advertising a “discreet” escort service. Silva points at one of the screenshots, in which the words “designed by KrakPot” were magnified and highlighted.
Makes sense, you ponder. He’s white and he likes to smoke weed.
“Giving him possession of Cassandra Wright may be a way to repay the favor. We won’t know for sure until we interrogate them.”
“Let me see if I get this straight.” You stand up, unwittingly walking in circles. “Judge Wright had ties with most of the major crime families. But something happened, and he got backstabbed.”
“Exactly - and that’s Clark’s thing to figure.”
“Great. Then, he somehow gets ahold of the pens, creates a clone of his as a decoy, and goes into Tessa.”
“Yes. Any idea as to the motive?”
Only one comes to mind. “Revenge. She divorced him, played him up, and even had him preside over Ashley’s case. Must’ve figured he could do so by screwing with her life.”
“Sounds like it. The rest is inconsequential, but for completion – judge Wright uses Tessa to restart his operation, probably taking advantage of the pens to gain more power.”
“How?”
“Renato killed his father, Genaro, then killed himself. Gloria di Santino now ‘leads’ the operations of the di Santino family.”
“But she’s really Tessa’s patsy.”
“Essentially. And also has a big pie of the city’s drug trade, thanks to Mr. Marquand. Couple with her escort service acting as intelligence gathering, and you can see why she rose to be a menace in over a year.”
“But you guys were on their trail – I mean, the FBI.”
“Exactly. But like I said, I wasn’t called for that. I was called for the ‘extraneous devices’.” She draws one last dossier from a secret compartment under a drawer, with a couple photos of an abandoned building. “I was called to investigate this.”
“That’s the place you told me, right? Where they’re replicating the pens?”
“Exactly. It was discovered as part of a sting operation – a potential drug cooking lab.” She flips to the last page, pointing at a name on the record. “This was before judge Wright’s death. Guess who was one of the suspects.”
You see the name she’s pointing at. Theodore R. Marquand.
“This,” she stresses, “is our current objective. Ross is probably our best bet, but we’ll need to extract him. And with Carlyle on our asses...”
“Unless...” You give her a very wild idea. “What if we aim for Carlyle first?”
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