The famed line “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” from the Simpson defense team had been replaced this century by the prosecution’s claim “If she did it in her past, it won’t be her last.”
At 5:06 p.m., Judge Clarence Carter rapped his gavel to bring the court to order. The crowded courtroom quieted as the judge prepared his notes. Only the hum of the fans that had been brought in to help cool the room was audible.
The judge gave the typical overview of how to conduct one’s self in a court of law, and warned that immediate removal by bailiffs would be ordered if anyone veered from this conduct.
“Mr. Foreman,” he finally said. “Have you come to a unanimous decision?”
“We have, Your Honor.”
A bailiff took the verdict from Harold Anthony and delivered it to the judge.
“Will the defendant please rise?”
Sitting at the defendant’s table in one of her designer dresses that no longer hugged her body the way they used to, now baggy and loose from weight loss, was Ellie Reiser. It had been fourteen months since Sidney Ryan’s body was discovered poorly hidden in her apartment, a year since she was arrested for the murder, and three months since she first sat behind the defendant’s table. She’d been released from her position at the hospital, and had spent her life’s savings on her defense team. She stood.
“Dr. Reiser, will you please face the jury?”
Ellie turned with a somber expression and faced her peers.
The judge turned to Harold Anthony.
“Mr. Foreman?”
Harold stood and read from his card. “Superior court of New York, in the matter of the people of New York versus Ellie Margaret Reiser . . . We, the jury, in the above entitled action, find the defendant, Ellie Margaret Reiser, guilty of the crime of murder in the first degree of Sidney Ryan.”
The courtroom exploded with cheers and sobs, applause and moans. The judge rapped his gavel again. The crowd refused to quiet. Ellie put her hand over her gaunt cheeks and sank back down into her seat.
Amid the commotion, a man stood from the back pew and limped gingerly out of the courtroom on his prosthetic, until he was past the crowd of media people and in the hallway.
CHAPTER 60
Sunday, September 16, 2018
HE HADN’T BEEN ON THE ROAD FOR MONTHS. A STEEP LEARNING curve came from driving with his left leg, but he felt there was nothing he could not conquer after ridding himself of the goddamn walker. And what better way to teach his left leg the nuances of pedal work than a fourteen-hour road trip? Now, out of the city and on the open road, with the windows down and the breeze strong in his face, he felt damn good.
Gus took the drive in two days. Four shifts of three hours, give or take. It had been more than a year since he had bid adieu to the folks at Alcove Manor. During the grand ceremony of his departure, he even managed to hug Nurse Ratchet on the way out—both smiling, but with looks that told another story. He had considered telling her to piss off, just a quiet whisper in her ear as she hugged him. He was sure a similar sentiment was on the tip of her tongue. Instead, when he had made it home, he lifted his prosthetic leg onto his coffee table, popped a beer, and turned on the Yankees game. Between innings, he picked up the phone and ordered flowers for each nurse to whom he had been a complete asshole. It wasn’t much, but it was the best he could do.
He made the final three-hour stretch of his journey without issue. He had resisted the urge during the past two days to push his driving time much past three hours. He still worked once a week with Jason, who had warned about sitting for too long, and Gus had learned over the last year to listen to what the kid had to say. It was Jason who had originally gotten his ass up and walking, and without that kid, Gus might still be lying in the rehab prison, relieving himself into a plastic jug.
He found the hotel, checked in at the front desk, and politely turned down the young man’s offer to help with his bag. His limp was visible, but less prominent than three months back. He had undergone his final fitting a month earlier when Jason completed the laser-scanning technique that allowed for the final design of his prosthesis, and Gus was still getting to know his new leg. He had turned down the “runner’s option,” which would produce a robotic-type extension from his hip that would allow for more versatile mobility.
“You’ll be a literal Robocop,” Jason had told him.
But Gus was no longer a cop, and agility hadn’t been his strong suit when he had two functioning legs, so he saw no reason to attempt to achieve it with one. He chose the more practical solution of a carbon-fiber hip socket and 3R60 knee, which allowed him to walk with an almost normal gait that would improve with time and experience. The Ottobock Triton foot, as opposed to the Robocop futuristic boomerang, was designed to allow him to wear a shoe that, when wearing pants, made him look like any other sixty-nine-year-old man. It had been more than a year since he lost his leg, and he was doing better than anyone had predicted.
In his hotel room, he sat on the edge of the bed and removed his prosthesis. He rubbed his stump to relieve the pain, which still came from time to time. He sat back on the bed with his shoulders against the headboard, opened his fast-food burger, popped a beer, and pulled the file folder from his bag.
After an hour, he set the file aside, turned off the lights, and went to sleep.
CHAPTER 61
Monday, September 17, 2018
HE LEFT THE HOTEL AT NINE O’CLOCK THE FOLLOWING MORNING and made the thirty-minute drive into Atlanta. He found the police department headquarters on Peachtree Street and pulled into the parking lot. He flashed his retired detective badge at the gate attendant, who saw gold and waved him through without scrutiny. Gus found a parking spot, refusing to use the handicapped spot in the front row, and walked to the entrance.
“Gus Morelli!”
Gus smiled as he managed the steps up to the front entrance. “Johnny Mack,” he said when he reached the landing. They shook hands like the old friends they were.
“That a rental I saw you in?”
“They don’t rent rusty ’92 Beamers. I drove down. I needed to get out of the city and on the road again.”
“Yeah?” John said. “The long ride’s got you limping pretty good.”
“Yeah,” Gus said. “Fourteen hours did a number on my back.”
“Come on in, pal. I’ll get you a coffee and show you what I found.”
* * *
Gus did his best to keep up with his old friend as John McMahon led him through the Criminal Investigation Unit. The guts of the Atlanta detectives’ department didn’t look much different from New York’s, where Gus had spent the last decade of his career. After twenty minutes of touring, Gus finally sat down in front of John’s desk.
“So,” John said, pulling two boxes from the floor and placing them on his desk, “this case you asked me about is more than twenty-five years old. Had a hell of a time pulling the boxes, but here they are.”
“How much trouble will it be for me to have a look?”
John shrugged. “I’m nine months away from retirement. No one is expecting me to follow any rules. And letting an old colleague look at an ancient cold case isn’t going to raise any eyebrows.”
“Thanks, John. I’m just gonna have a look to get myself up to speed on the details.”
“Of course. Can I get you anything other than coffee?”
“Yeah,” Gus said. “You know some lab guys who could help me out?”
“Maybe. What do you need?”
Gus pulled an envelope from his pocket and carefully removed the tissue that was inside. He gently unfolded the corners to reveal the fingernail clippings.
“I need someone to run DNA analysis on these, and then compare them to what was found at the crime scene in here.” Gus pointed to the box.
“I knew you were onto something when you called,” John said. He looked down at the clippings. “I could probably find a tech that could do it. But it ain’t cheap.”
“Don’t worry about the cost. I’ll cover everything.”
“Someone cashing in on a favor you owe them?” John asked.
“No,” Gus said. “I’m just making good on a promise.”
CHAPTER 62
Friday, September 21, 2018
HIS ATLANTA ROAD TRIP LASTED NEARLY A WEEK. TWO DAYS AFTER his return, Gus bellied up to the bar at Jim Brady’s, a favorite Irish pub in Tribeca. Paul, the proprietor, was an old friend. They caught up over a pint of Guinness, calling each other Mick and Guinea more times than anyone around them cared to hear. They toasted to Gus kicking cancer’s ass.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come back for another round,” Gus said with a frosted lip. “I’ve only got one leg left to kick with.”
“Well, my friend,” Paul said. “I hope you’re finally able to enjoy your retirement.”
“Nah,” Gus said. “This whole fiasco over the last year has shown me that I’m not the retiring type.”
“You’re not going back to the force, are you?”
Gus laughed. “I’m sixty-nine, with one leg. No police force is taking me back. And I’m not interested.”
Gus reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, opened it up to show Paul the license inside. It wasn’t quite as powerful as pulling out his badge, but it still felt good.
Paul leaned over the bar. “Private investigator?”
“Passed the state examination last month,” Gus said.
“What the hell is an over-the-hill, retired detective going to investigate?”
“A few cases from back in the day. They’re calling me out of retirement.”
Paul lifted his pint. “Maybe you’ll stop in more often, like the old days.”
Gus toasted his friend again. “Maybe.”
Paul left to tend to other customers. Gus sipped his beer and ate a burger as he read the paper. He turned down the young bartender’s offer to refill his pint, and waited for the lunch crowd to thin before he pulled the file folder from his bag. It felt just like the old days, sipping a pint and digging for clues. He was no longer a cop, and his retired detective’s badge combined with his new P.I. license would only get him so many perks compared to the real thing. But he was also no longer on the clock, and he could choose what he spent his time on. He’d fulfill his promise to Sidney to look into her father’s conviction. And he had plans to revisit the storage facility in the Bronx and dig through those old files that still haunted him. He was sixty-nine, he still had time. But before he dusted off cases from the past, there was another that was much more pressing.
He spent an hour at the bar reading through the file. When he finished, he looked up at the television. Airing was a replay of the final episode of The Girl of Sugar Beach. A year after taking America by storm, the documentary was being rerun in prime time, and replayed constantly during the day on the network’s cable affiliate, to correspond with Ellie Reiser’s trial, which had just wrapped. In the wake of Sidney’s death the previous year, the final three episodes were watched by tens of millions of viewers. The final installment, which showed Sidney welcoming Grace Sebold as she walked through the gates of the Bordelais Correctional Facility in St. Lucia, and concluded with a shot of Grace Sebold standing on the Montauk Point Lighthouse as a free woman, arms outstretched, sweater like a cape in the breeze, had generated an audience of more than 60 million. The monstrous ratings were topped only by the recent trial that was connected to the documentary. Ellie Reiser’s verdict, aired live on every network late on a Thursday evening, had been watched by more than 150 million people, matching the numbers produced when O.J. Simpson was found not guilty more than twenty years before.
Gus kept his eyes on the television until the shot of Grace Sebold atop the lighthouse faded and the words appeared on the screen: In Loving Memory of Sidney Ryan.
Gus motioned to the bartender.
“Give me two shots of whiskey, then close my tab.”
“Jameson?”
“Johnnie Walker,” Gus said.
The bartender returned a minute later.
“Need another beer with these?” the kid asked as he set the brimming shots in front of Gus.
“No thanks. Just some privacy.”
The kid nodded and headed to the other end of the bar. Gus packed up his file and folded his newspaper. He stared at the mirror behind the bar, locked eyes with himself. Before cancer had found him, it was whiskey that had taken hold of his life. It hadn’t been easy to admit, but the truth has a funny way of catching up to you when you spend six weeks in a hospital bed. He had decided his new life would come without the brown stuff, and he had done well over the last year to stay away from it. But a bet was a bet, and today there was no way around it.
He’d been close on his theory all those months ago. Close, but not quite right. And the circus trial that had taken place over the past few weeks had done little to convince him that the world was any closer to the truth about what had happened to the two boys who had loved Grace Sebold. But with so many unanswered questions, he knew one thing for sure. He was wrong about what he’d written to Sidney months ago. Grace Sebold didn’t kill Henry Anderson. He was quite certain she didn’t kill Julian Crist, either.
He took his eyes from the mirror and looked down at the two shots of whiskey. He picked one up, brought it close to his lips.
“Cheers, kid,” he whispered before he tipped it back and swallowed it down. He stood from the stool and took a moment to right himself on his prosthesis; then he placed his empty shot glass next to the other. He stared down at the bar, afternoon sun spilled through the front entrance and slanted across the mahogany. He looked at the two shot glasses—one full, one empty—tapped his fist twice against the railing and limped out.
As he pushed through the front door and into the afternoon sun, his cell phone rang. Gus pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the display: Dr. Livia Cutty. He’d been expecting her call.
Gus placed the phone to his ear as he hobbled down the street.
“Hey, Doc,” he said. “You got those results for me?”
CHAPTER 63
Friday, September 21, 2018
HE TOOK THE 1 TRAIN FROM JIM BRADY’S TO BROOKLYN. HE STILL had some contacts at the Metropolitan Detention Center, and had called ahead to make arrangements. Gus was on no visitor log, so an old friend pulled some strings and didn’t ask questions. It was a popular request, and the gesture did not go unnoticed. It would cost him a case of scotch, but was well worth it.
When Gus walked up the subway stairs at Twenty-fifth Street in Greenwood Heights, the sun was still bright and hot. He took the five blocks with confidence, stopping only once to give his stump a rest. When he made it to the front of the detention center, he stood tall and did his best to hide his limp. His friend met him at the entrance, Gus pretended not to notice the subtle glance at his prosthetic leg, and they both entered the prison. His friend cut through the red tape Gus would otherwise have had to endure. Within ten minutes, he was sitting in a private visitation room made up of four chairs and a table. He was dressed casually in slacks and an oxford button-down shirt. His bag rested on the table and a snapshot of himself, seated with his hands folded as he waited, made the woman’s first sentence logical when she entered the room.
“I don’t need another lawyer,” Ellie Reiser said. “Mine are crappy enough.”
“Good. ’Cause I’m not a lawyer.”
Ellie sat across from him. She was wearing standard prison orange.
“Who are you, then?”
“I’m an old friend of Sidney Ryan’s,” Gus said. “I’m also a detective. Used to be. I’m retired now, but I was working with Sidney when she died.”
Gus ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek.
“I actually think I was talking with her on the phone when she was killed.”
Ellie shook her head. “I had nothing to do with her death.”
“I watched your trial. The whole circus,” Gus said. “I was one
of the regulars that showed up every day in court and sat in the back row.” He pulled the file from his bag, opened the folder, and placed it in front of him.
“Let me summarize the prosecution’s argument against you. Sidney goes to your apartment. She discovers that, due to some irrational jealousy issues you have about Grace Sebold, you killed not only Julian Crist in St. Lucia, but also Henry Anderson years before. The only two boys who ever loved her. When Sidney confronts you with her suspicion that Grace Sebold’s love lock, which had for years been in your possession, was wrapped in a nylon bag and used to strike and kill both victims, you engaged in a confrontation with her. Ultimately you did what you do best. You used the love lock to strike Sidney and kill her. ‘If she did it in the past, it won’t be her last.’ Do I have the argument correct?”
“My attorney told me not to speak to anyone who showed up unannounced.”
“You might change your mind when you hear what I have to tell you.”
Gus looked back to the file.
“Then there’s the evidence,” he said. “And it’s overwhelming. The blood in your high-rise, which you poorly tried to clean up, the body hidden in the bathtub, the love lock stashed away in your drawer. The nylon bag that held it covered in blood. I could go on, but I think a body, blood, and murder weapon are sufficient. It certainly was for the jury that convicted you.”
Ellie continued to stare at him. Tears welled in her eyes as she shook her head and looked away. “I know how it looks. And if you were Sidney’s friend, I know what you must think about me. The entire world despises me, and I have no idea how any of this happened to her.”
Don't Believe It Page 29