Counterfeit Life

By Debra Gaskill

When Columbus, Ohio, businesswoman Lisa Harper tries to change her name following her wedding, she gets a rude awakening: the social security number she's used all her life isn't hers. When Ames Flaherty, the lawyer hired to find out the truth, discovers her birth certificate is also forged, Lisa finds she's been living a counterfeit life.

If she's not the daughter of Dr. Regina Harper, an art professor in the hippie village of Jasper Crossing, then who is she? Is she the product of a one-night stand, fathered by a man whose name her mother never learned or can't remember? Or is she really the missing Emily Gunnel, long believed dead in a house fire and whose body was never recovered? Whispers of another man, who helped Regina and Lisa move into Jasper Crossing, have persisted all these years, despite Regina's claim otherwise. Who could that man be? And what did he do that forced him to disappear?

Author Debra Gaskill returns to her fictional Plummer County, Ohio, for this novel of murder and family secrets.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Debra Gaskill
• Release date: Jan 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393437383

Debra Gaskill

Debra Gaskill is the former managing editor of the Washington Court House (Ohio) Record Herald, which earned two Associated Press General Excellence awards during her tenure. She was an award-winning journalist for 20 years, writing for a number of Ohio newspapers covering the cops and courts beat, and the Associated Press, covering any stories thrown her way. Gaskill brings her knowledge of newspapers to her Jubilant Falls series. The mysteries 'Barn Burner' (2009), 'The Major's Wife' (2010), 'Lethal Little Lies' (2013), 'Murder on the Lunatic Fringe' (2014) and 'Death of A High Maintenance Blonde' (2014) all center around crimes committed in the fictional small town Jubilant Falls, Ohio, and often center around the damage family secrets can do. 'The Major's Wife' received honorable mention in the 2011 Writer's Digest Self-Published Book Awards and 'Barn Burner' was a finalist for the Silver Falchion Award at Killer Nashville.. Her next series, featuring the private investigator Niccolo Fitzhugh, brings her cops and courts experience together in a mystery that "creates complex characters and places them in real settings" according to customer reviews. That series includes Call Fitz (2015), Holy Fitz (2016), Love Fitz (2016), and the 2018 Silver Falchion Award winner for Best Suspense, Kissing Fitz (2017). Gaskill has an associates degree in liberal arts from Thomas Nelson Community College in Hampton, Va., a bachelor's degree in English and journalism from Wittenberg University and a master of fine arts in creative writing from Antioch University, Yellow Springs. She and her husband Greg, a retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, have two children and three grandchildren. They raise llamas and alpacas on their farm in Enon, Ohio. Connect with her on her website, www.debragaskillnovels.com, as well as on Twitter and Facebook.

Book preview

Chapter 1— Ames

Detective Rousch pounded on the door. The two deputies beside him moved their hands to their weapons as the tarnished door knocker bounced. At the sidewalk, beyond the chain link fence and the yard littered with toys, I stood next to a third deputy and his canine.

My eyes squinted from behind my Oakleys, pain shooting straight to my skull when the sun managed to peek in. I ran my tongue along my teeth; at least I’d brushed them before leaving home. If I spoke, those around me wouldn’t smell the elixir that buried the pain at my coffee table last night.

Sheriff’s Office! Search warrant! Open the door! he bellowed.

The morning’s spring breeze, already heavy with the day’s promised rain, drew a thin curtain through the open window. I found a fresh piece of gum in my pocket, removed the foil and stuffed it in my mouth, hoping the minty taste would settle my roiling stomach.

That’s not funny, Gary! A woman’s voice came from inside the house. Her voice was rough with agitation above children’s voices.

Rousch looked at the deputies beside him, confused.

Excuse me?

You heard me! I’m sick of your twisted sense of humor, your idiot pranks and what you think is funny! It’s seven in the goddamn morning, Gary! I’ve got three kids to get ready for school and—

Ma’am, this is the sheriff’s office. We have a warrant to search your property. Please open the door or we’ll knock it down.

Oh, for Christ sake, Gary. You’re not funny. Celeste, go tell Uncle Gary to cut it out.

Small footprints ran toward the front of the house and a tiny blonde girl stuck her head out the window. Her eyes widened till they nearly popped from her little skull and her mouth gaped.

Mommy! It ain’t Uncle Gary. It’s police mans! Real ones!

Something fell inside the house and the woman cursed. Seconds later, the front door opened. She was barefoot, in a ragged tee-shirt and thin pajama bottoms. A cotton robe hung open from her bony shoulders. A baby, his face smeared with purple food, rested on her bony hip, sucking on his fist. The woman’s eyes widened, and her jaw dropped.

I am so sorry, officers. It’s just that my brother-in-law... She opened the door.

Rousch and the other officers stepped inside. The canine officer and I advanced up the front walk toward the porch.

We have reason to believe that a crime occurred in this house and we need to search the property. Rousch handed her the warrant.

A crime? She scanned the piece of paper in her hand. Who? My husband?

No, ma’am. We believe the crime occurred with a previous resident. We need to search your back yard.

She ran her hand through her hair. Her speech was jerky, agitated. Of course. I guess. Sure.

Rousch turned to the canine handler and me and waved us in. We moved through the ratty living room, through the chaotic kitchen, heading straight to the back door. The screen door squeaked opened and the canine’s toenails danced on the stained linoleum, eager to get to work.

His handler crouched next to the dog, a lean, muscular German Shepherd, and released the leash. The dog whined with anticipation but didn’t move.

Ajax! Search!

Ajax shot out the door, sniffing frantically around the privacy fence, the play set with one swing hanging by a single chain, the base of a maple tree. He turned back sharply to the concrete patio and began to whine, digging at the dirt at the corner. Confirmation received, he stopped and sat down, looking expectantly at his handler.

Good boy, Ajax! the deputy said, striding to the dog and reattaching the leash. Good boy!

Rousch watched for a moment as the dog snapped a treat from his handler’s hand.

Twenty years and I’m still amazed at what these dogs can do, he said. He turned to one of cops beside him. We’re going to the state boys here with their ground-penetrating radar. After that, I imagine we’re going to need a jackhammer.

I sidled up to Rousch. So, I can tell my client she was right?

He looked me up and down like he knew I’d celebrated the night before, confident of what we’d find today.

What Rousch didn’t know was, despite today’s success, I had a quest of my own. My mission never ended because the chance of success was small, even infinitesimal. It shut me away from the things I saw those around me enjoying: a wife, family, children, weekends with friends. She was out there. I knew she was and no matter what, I’d find her. If it took me until my dying day, I’d find her. Last night, I did celebrate that my client finally had the answers she sought, but mourned that mine still eluded me.

Rousch’s mouth moved. I stuffed my pain away to focus on what Rousch was saying.

I’m sorry—I didn’t hear you.

I said, ‘Looks that way.’ According to the dog, we’ve got a body.

SHE WASN’T A MISTRESS, but she cost me a marriage. She wasn’t an addiction either, not in the truest sense. Still, she caused my friends to, first, be uncomfortable in my presence, and try to talk me out of finding her. Then when none of that worked, to finally avoid me all together.

My parents died at the hands of a drunk driver. But before that awful day, they took my hand on more than one occasion and tried to talk me out of my quest. The words, whether they came from Mother or Dad, were generally the same: Son, I’m sure she’s fine, wherever she is. Someone has taken her in. I’m sure she has a good home and a good life. You need to give this up, for your own well-being, for our well-being. We have grieved until we can’t grieve any more. We can’t hang our hopes on something that may or may not get resolved. You have to trust that everything worked out OK.

It started ten years ago, on the day of my wedding. My quest’s mother—my sister Rose—was there, the first of Kathy’s bridesmaids to come down the aisle. Her eyes were glassy as she put one gangly leg in front of the other, her hands clutching flowers, lopsidedly smiling at me.

She promised she’d show up sober and not ruin Kathy’s day.

She didn’t.

Weddings are always more about the bride than the groom—I get that. A niggling feeling told me Kathy’s parents looked at the ceremony as a public reward for moving up the social ladder. Their daughter was not only marrying a young lawyer with a great job at one of the biggest firms in Ohio, but she was marrying into money and power.

Nothing obvious or flashy, you understand, but real power coming from generations of old money, old connections and Statehouse access that began way back in Prohibition. Distant cousins still tell stories of my immigrant Irish grandfather, Angus Flaherty, piloting his boat into Lake Erie to take on cases of Canadian Scotch by the light of the moon.

Kathy’s mother, Hazel, hissed angry instructions to the videographer to take as few wide shots as possible, to keep Rose—identified as "that girl"—out of frame.

He tried. In the finished product, there’s only a brief hint of the congregation’s collective gasp as Rose teetered, tried to catch herself on the altar rail and sank in a heap. True to his word, it wasn’t caught on tape.

The whole ugly thing lives on in YouTube infamy, though, thanks to Kathy’s pissant sixteen-year-old brother and his new iPhone. Look it up—you can find it under ‘wedding day disasters.’

Ushers scuttled Rose away from the altar and out of the church as quickly as possible. My parents missed the reception to get my twin sister Rose treated for an overdose.

Again.

Kathy’s lips pulled tightly across her teeth as, vowed exchanged, we walked down the aisle as the new Mr. and Mrs. Ames Flaherty.

"That was why I didn’t want her as a bridesmaid, she hissed from behind those perfect white teeth. I knew she’d ruin our wedding. I knew it!"

I’m sorry she couldn’t keep her promise, I hissed back. She’s an addict.

And your family are nothing but enablers with Rose.

Kathy and I didn’t last that long. Five years in, Rose was dead, and Kathy told me she couldn’t compete with my search.

It’s like this whole thing is more important than me, Ames, Kathy said. It’s like I don’t matter to you anymore.

Honey, that’s not true!

C’mon, you know it is. We don’t do anything anymore. Every free weekend, you look for that kid, chasing down anything that even looks like it could lead somewhere. Truth is, the only thing you’ve found is divorce papers. She slapped the legal documents into my hand, picked up her suitcase and was gone.

It was just as well, I suppose. She has what she wants now, a big house in New Albany, two girls and a boy, a handsome husband with a flashy career and a new Beemer every year. I’m sure her social climbing parents are happy, too.

Today, I’m a hung-over, bitter man, standing atop the long-ago grave of a someone whose daughter didn’t know where she was and why she disappeared from her life. Once digging begins, I can tell my client her biggest question solved. From there on, it falls to Det. Rousch and the court system to provide the justice.

My answers are still being sought. I know my sister is dead. I know where she’s buried. I don’t know where her daughter—my niece—is.

She’s all the family I have left now, and I won’t stop until I find her.

Chapter 2—Ames

My client’s name was Harper. Lisa Harper. Well, at least she thought it was. She married a guy named Steve Reznick, and taking his last name is what started this whole thing. If she’d kept her maiden name, none of this would have ever come up.

Then, too, a murder wouldn’t have been discovered, either.

She worked in my building. I watched her come into the elevator of my office building every morning, on legs that went clear up to her neck. She was the kind of woman who dressed in a distinct style of her own, dramatic colors on sweeping fabrics that made her movements less human, more swan-like. She ran long, painted fingernails through silken black hair with one hand as the other hand clutched a Starbucks. If the instructions on the cup were correct, it was a soy latte with two shots of espresso.

What was her name? According to barista custom, you sure couldn’t go by the name on the cup: Herker, Lyle, Leslie, Happy, Hooper, and even, one day, Jane. So, until the afternoon she walked into my office and introduced herself, I couldn’t tell you who she was.

I knew she and her designer coffee rode up to the floor below mine and stepped off the elevator and unlocked the door of an office called H&H Media.

The first time she got on the elevator, I noticed she wore no wedding ring. I entertained the idea of asking her out, but the scars from my marriage to Kathy were not completely healed. It was too early to try again, especially when my ex-wife reminded me the search for my niece would drive any relationship I attempted into the ground. As time passed, I wanted to ask who either H or H were and what kind of media they did.

Then, that day UPS delivered a box from Kathy. It was a box of love letters that I’d sent her while we were in college. There was a terse note: Found these in the garage. Thought you might want them. I had my feet on my desk, tossing the letters into my shredder when Lisa walked in.

My law practice wasn’t much, unlike the office building I worked in, the historic Law and Finance Building near the corner of Gay and Third in Columbus. I still felt intimidated every day as I walked through the art deco entrance, into the ornate lobby of what had been, in 1927, the home of the Ohio State Savings Association. Whether it was from the building’s grand architecture or the weight of my family’s past, I’m not sure.

I did a little defense work, a little real estate, a couple divorces, the occasional trust, but no longer from the ornate suite of top floor offices where my family’s law practice, Flaherty and Flaherty, operated from over the years. I’d grown up in those offices, spent time in the waiting room, rolling my Hot Wheels cars over the arms of the chairs and across the mahogany coffee table, littered with my mother’s old copies of Architectural Digest, Vogue and Town and Country magazines.

The practice sold when my folks died. The other Flaherty lawyers were scooped up, of course, by the best law firms in town. Except me. I kept the lease, moving my office from floor to floor over the years, reducing my space to a couple bland painted rooms and a john.

Most of my practice was for friends and most of it done on the cheap. Most of my income was old Flaherty money and proceeds from the sale of the original practice following my parents’ deaths. The rest was from adoption searches, thanks to my search for Rose’s daughter and the news coverage it generated.

In this age of the internet and mail-order DNA tests, you’d think that most folks would be easy to find. The old you can run but you can’t hide line. I’m here to tell you that’s not true. What I’ve learned from looking for Rose’s daughter has taught me that much. Folks who don’t want to be found can still live beneath the unfaltering gaze of our plugged-in world.

I assumed that was what Miss Soy Latte needed to know as she stood in front of my desk.

Boy, this place doesn’t look like a whole lot, she said, taking in my singular desk, the dark red Persian rug and the two leather wing chairs.

Can I help you? I sat up and shoved the rest of my wasted purple prose back into the box.

I’ve seen you on the elevator and I heard from the security guy you were the one to come to for help.

That depends on what you need. I indicated she should choose a wing chair. She glided to the one on my right and folded herself into it like a dancer. I caught the glimmer of a diamond on her left hand.

My name’s Lisa Harper Reznick. Or at least I grew up thinking it was. I guess it’s not.

You're adopted?

She shrugged her shoulders.

I don't know—it could be there’s something else. I got married a couple weeks ago—Steve and I just got back from a week in New Orleans—and I went to the social security office to change my name. That’s when I found it out.

Found out what?

Lisa Harper isn’t the name attached to my social security number. The person attached to my social security number has my birthday, but she died when she was two years old.

Now she had my interest.

Did you ask your parents about this? Could it have been some clerical error?

She shook her head.

The social security folks are looking into it, but they don’t think it’s in error. It’s always been just my mother and me. I’ve never known who my father was—is.

I’m sorry to hear that.

Mom and I were very close until I started seeing Steve, Lisa continued. She never fussed about any other boy I dated, but she saw Steve as a real threat, especially after I’d started my business. When he proposed, she went off the deep end.

What didn’t she like about Steve? Maybe he was a motorcycle hood, one of those bad boys that women always seem to find attractive.

Lisa shrugged. I have no idea. Steve’s an accountant.

My thoughts switched from leather jackets and Harley Davidson motorcycles to wrinkled khakis and thick glasses. Hey, you never know.

I just need to know the truth of who I am, she said.

Don’t we all? I answered.

Excuse me?

Never mind. You can’t talk to your mother about this?

Lisa used a fingertip to gently pat away a tear from her dark lashes and preserve her perfect make-up.

Our relationship got better after the proposal, but a few months before the wedding, she was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer, so we knew she didn’t have a lot of time left.

I’m so sorry, I said.

She wouldn’t let us move up the wedding—I wanted to throw away all the money we’d spent so far and elope to Vegas so she could be there. She said no. She died five weeks ago, three weeks before I married Steve. Her last words to me were ‘Please forgive me.’ I kept asking her, ‘Why would I need to forgive you?’ but she never answered. Within ten minutes, she was gone.

Wow.

So, I don’t know—did she want forgiveness for keeping my adoption secret? I mean, why would adoption be something to hide? Lisa wiped another tear from her eye.

Do you have a birth certificate?

She fished through her designer bag and handed it to me. It looked official enough: a photocopy of the original, with all the usual things there, including the I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS IS AN EXACT COPY OF THE ORIGINAL CERTIFICATE ... blah-blah-blah, followed by an illegible signature by the department head and the shadowy impressions of a photocopied departmental seal.

Lisa Ann Harper, born 1:22 a.m. 8 pounds, 12 ounces. Mother: Regina Harper. Father: UNKNOWN. The hospital was a small county hospital in Southern Ohio, as was the mother’s address. My thumb flicked the corner of the paper in my hand. It seemed cheap and flimsy for an official copy, but cost-cutting happens, especially at governmental agencies. The shadows of the seal looked legit.

I pondered for a moment before answering. Most of my adoption search cases were pretty cut and dried. Children looked for parents who’d given them up, to ask why or fill a hole in their heart. Sometimes, parents looked for children and forgiveness in their last days on this earth. In more extreme situations, folks needed to know why they faced their third open heart surgery at twenty-five or why their child had some genetic abnormality they’d never heard of.

Lisa Harper was none of these situations. Her mother’s dying words didn't ask for absolution over hiding an adoption; this was bigger and uglier than that. Until I knew more, I didn’t want to jump to any conclusion.

A normal adoption was easy to uncover; between family paperwork, birth certificates and public genealogy web sites, most got solved within a few months. The best part was setting up the meeting between parents and children.

When those didn’t work, I turned to a DNA lab, but that was only on rare occasions.

I’d be glad to help you out. I can start by going over to the Ohio Department of Health and requesting your adoption file. I’ll need to have you fill out a couple ODH forms and get a copy of your driver’s license and birth certificate. That should give us a place to start. I pulled a contract from a lower desk drawer and shoved it across the desk. I turned to my computer and with a few keystrokes, the state forms began to click, line by line, from the printer on the bookshelf beside me. Sign this, please. I have a couple appointments this afternoon, but I’ll get down there first thing tomorrow morning.

Lisa nodded. She was silent as she filled out the forms, occasionally wiping a tear from her eyes. When she finished, her signature, like her style, with its own special flourish. She rose from the wing chair as she recapped her pen—a Waterman, I noticed. I caught a quick glimpse of her bosom as she leaned over the desk to shake my hand. I closed my eyes, remembering how long it had been since I’d held a woman in my arms.

Thanks, Lisa, I said, although I couldn’t think for what. I’ll do everything I can to find out the truth. I’ll get back to you as soon as I have something.

I appreciate it. She shook my hand and was gone.

Later that afternoon, I had a quick court appearance as counsel for the plaintiff in a civil case: a bad brake job on my client’s Jaguar cost him the back wall of his garage and the repair shop’s insurance was trying to deny payment.

Lucky for me, they caved once we got to court and settled.

For a moment, I considered heading home. It was warm outside: I could go for a quick run through my Bexley neighborhood or stop at the corner sports bar for a beer. Maybe I’d visit Rose at the cemetery.

Or maybe not.

I pulled Lisa’s paperwork from my briefcase and, instead, headed down to the Department of Vital Statistics.

If Lisa Harper was adopted, they’d have the court file there and she’d be on the road to figuring out her past. I could have this case solved and could spend tomorrow shredding my love letters to Kathy.

THE CLERK AT THE WINDOW took my identification and Lisa’s forms and disappeared into the back. After about half an hour she was back.

We don’t have any files under this name, Mr. Flaherty, she began. But we do have other concerns you need to address with your client.

What’s that?

This birth certificate, I don’t think it’s authentic.

Are you saying it’s forged?

I’m not going to say that, but my supervisor and I both can tell it’s not real.

How?

She pointed to the stamp proclaiming the certificate’s authenticity. See that name? It doesn’t match any of the signatures on any of the other certificate copies issued at any time—or at any time since this date of birth. You can’t even read it.

I nodded. I couldn’t read it either, but who thought twice about illegible signatures?

You might want to ask her where she got it.

I believe she got it from the woman who claimed to be her adoptive mother.

The clerk raised an eyebrow.

Well, if she was adopted, it wasn’t in the state of Ohio.

I accepted the birth certificate from the clerk and slid it into the breast pocket of my suit coat, sighing in exasperation.

It wasn’t yet five o’clock. Lisa Harper-Reznick might still be at her office. This couldn’t wait until tomorrow.

Chapter 3—Lisa

L isa?

My summer intern, Josie, a sophomore at Ohio State, was standing in my office door, her purse slung over her shoulder and her Kindle clutched to her chest.

Looking over her shoulder, I didn’t get the usual pride I felt over the room behind her, full of graphic designers, web designers, copywriters and editors. In rooms beyond that, video was being shot and edited, all for my company H&H Media.

Of course, I was the first H—Harper. The second H was Hope. That was all I had when I started this business in my spare bedroom: my talent and a little hope. I’d built this business from the ground up. I was featured in articles on female entrepreneurs, ‘Ohio women to watch’ stories and won more than my fair share of awards.

The world saw me as a go-getter, confident and a role model to young women everywhere.

But now? After what I’d found out about myself, everything I’d built seemed less like success and more like fraud. If I wasn’t Lisa Harper, how could I now be Lisa Harper Reznick? And who was Lisa Harper anyway? I was developing a terminal case of imposter’s syndrome.

Meeting with that lawyer downstairs, that Ames Flaherty guy, didn’t help. The security guy at the front desk said Ames did adoption searches, said he was the best in Columbus, son and grandson of the best lawyers in town.

He sure didn’t look like it when I walked in, throwing paper wads into the shredder while he sat with his big feet on what used to be a very fancy antique desk. The desk was in dire need of good varnish job to bring it back to its former beauty. The Persian carpet on the floor was old, but good quality—someone took care of that. The two wing chairs were leather and reeked of old money, but still could have used some attention.

A niggling little voice in the back of my head told me he was sharp, that I should trust him. My world already was rocked with the discovery my social security number belonged to someone else. How much worse could it get, after all?

I pasted a smile on my face, returning to the present and the young woman in front of me.

Headed home, Josie?

No ma’am, well, yes I was, but as I was heading out the door, this guy came in.

Who is it?

His name is Ames Flaherty.

He wasn’t supposed to come by until tomorrow, I thought. What could he have found?

Send him back, please.

I stood as Ames entered, looking around my office. I mixed slick modern art with furniture that was Art Deco enough to match the building’s exterior and modern enough to meet my technology needs. I had a large desk and an executive-style, but feminine chair. A painting most folks mistook for a Pollock print hung behind the desk, with bright accent pieces and a few awards on the matching sideboard beneath it. My mother used to tell me my talent came naturally. Now, I couldn’t help wondering where I’d gotten my eye for design or marketing.

This place is nice, he said. You’ve got great style.

Thank you.

For a fake, a voice inside reminded me.

I walked from behind my desk and indicated we sit at the small round conference table in the corner. Before I joined him, I remembered my open office door—if this was going to be bad, I couldn’t let my staff see me fall apart. Most of them were packing up to go home or left already. Most likely, no one would be around to hear anything. Relieved, I closed the door and returned to the table to sit across from him.

What did you find? I didn’t expect to see you until tomorrow.

Ames opened his briefcase and pulled out the state forms and my birth certificate. He slid them across the table to me. I didn’t touch them, afraid, crazily, of searing my fingertips.

I have been doing adoption searches for several years—and I’ll tell you, I’ve never seen anything like this.

"Like what? What?"

There is no adoption file under your name at the Ohio Department of Vital Statistics.

Then how do I have an Ohio birth certificate?

Ames slowly exhaled, puffing out his cheeks.

I don’t know. Your birth certificate. It’s forged.

What?

I’m afraid so. In between your fraudulent social security number and this forged birth certificate, I think there’s only one answer. You’re a victim—

A victim! I broke in. How can I be a victim?

He held up his hands.

Hold on! Hold on! I’m trying to tell you!

Sorry. I clasped my hands in my lap, staring at them like a schoolgirl.

Maybe you were kidnapped as a child, either by a stranger or by a family member.

Kidnapped! The air rushed from my lungs and I clasped the edge of the table.

"Yes. Someone has