We were in the firm’s cafeteria, moving through the line with our trays. The food was extraordinarily good and inexpensive; it was the one aspect of big-time lawyering that I was likely to miss.
“That’s what I thought while I was talking to her, but … yeah, she might be nuts.”
“Maybe you should report her,” she said.
“To who? About what?”
“Well, if she’s suicidal, shouldn’t you tell someone? I mean, if she hangs herself in her cell and they come to you, what are you going to say? ‘Oh, right, she mentioned cutting her heart out, but it slipped my mind’?”
“She’s not going to hang herself in her cell. She wants to do the whole thing under medical supervision. And I can’t tell anyone about it; it’s covered under attorney-client privilege. Did you cut class the year they taught that in law school?”
“Sorry, Mr. Harvard.” The fact that I went to Harvard Law somehow has always qualified me for ridicule among my colleagues, all of whom would have sacrificed their future firstborns to have gone there. “And if it’s all privileged, how come you’re telling me?”
“Because we work for the same firm; I consider you my cocounsel.”
“I suggest you reconsider that. Are you going to take her case?”
“No way. If I lose, which I would, I’m a loser. If I win, which I won’t, my client dies. Not exactly a fun way to pass the time.”
“And her daughter is really going to die?”
“That’s what she said; I have to assume she wouldn’t lie about it.”
We were quiet for a while; I was thinking about Sheryl’s situation and I imagined Julie was doing the same.
Finally, she said, “I’m trying to imagine my mother giving up her heart for me.” She laughed. “If she did, I’d never hear the end of it.”
I wasn’t quite into the humor of this; I could still picture Sheryl in that prison, trying to control her desperation, relying on me.
But Julie was on a roll. “Every day I don’t get married, she tells me I’m tearing her heart out.”
We finished lunch and headed back to our respective offices for another torture-filled afternoon. At 6:15, I got an instant message from her asking me if I was almost done for the day. I wrote back that I was planning to be out in fifteen minutes.
You want to grab a drink? Julie asked.
More than one, I responded.
We went to Hurlihey’s, on Columbus. It’s where I went when I was with someone, and therefore not interested in meeting anyone new. They have great burgers, crisp on the outside and rare on the inside, and a bunch of TVs always tuned to sports.
I started ordering dark and stormies, a combination of Gosling’s Rum and ginger beer that a friend in Boston had introduced me to the previous summer. Julie was drinking bloody marys, and like always was sucking them down to what must have been a hollow leg. No matter how much she drank it never seemed to affect her.
“You seem preoccupied,” she said. “Talk to Mama.”
“I’m fine. Just tired.”
“Bullshit. You’re thinking about your nut-job client in prison.”
“Actually, I was thinking about the shooting in Tucson. The one where the congresswoman got shot, and a bunch of other people died. You remember?”
She nodded. “Of course I remember. What about it?”
“There was a judge there with his wife. He was one of the people who were killed.”
“And?”
“The killer had pointed the gun at the judge’s wife and fired, but the judge jumped in front of her and took the bullet.”
Julie could be somewhat impatient when a story wasn’t being told fast enough for her taste. “Land the plane on this, Jamie.”
“So he was considered a hero for saving her life. Their friends went on the Today show, columns were written, it was a beautiful story. He gave up his life for the person he loved.”
Julie nodded slowly. “Which is what she wants to do.”
“Right. And he did it in the spur of the moment, with barely enough time to think about it. She’s had nothing but time to think, and to make a reasoned, careful decision.”
“Maybe she’s not such a nut job after all,” Julie said.
I was always considered an underachiever.
There were a number of reasons for that, the most obvious being that I pretty consistently underachieved. This I managed despite finishing near the top of my class in high school, then doing the same at the University of Pennsylvania, and graduating from Harvard Law.
The thing about underachieving is it is all based on expectations, and the ones for me were way up there. A lot of that was my own fault. I’m really smart, with an IQ off the charts, and perfect scores, or damn close, on every college board and achievement test I ever took.
So that raised the bar quite a bit, but it was starting from a ridiculously high level. My father is Dr. Thomas Wagner, the head of Respiratory Medicine at Columbia Presbyterian. You know how everybody always says that their doctor is “the best”? Well, if they’re talking about respiratory medicine, and they’re not talking about Thomas Wagner, then they have no idea what they’re talking about.
Mom is Theresa Lynne Wagner, and she is extraordinarily formidable in her own right. A graduate of the London School of Economics, an MBA from Harvard, she went on to become CFO for a Fortune 500 company.
She left that position, voluntarily, at the age of forty-seven, in order to become involved in every charitable foundation in the history of Earth. She is also on the board of directors of six different companies, and writes an occasional op-ed in The Wall Street Journal.
They’re just a pair of typical parents, except for maybe the part about driving the kids to soccer games. And except for their unnerving ability to make every night feel like parent-teacher night, with them playing both roles.
I saw a shrink the summer after my sophomore year in college. My parents suggested it, concerned that my academics was not up to their expected standards. Parents all over America were dealing with kids dropping out of school and/or strung out on drugs, and my parents were panicking that I had a 3.7 at Penn.
I didn’t pick the shrink from my father’s approved list, which for me qualified as a fairly rebellious act. The one I did pick didn’t help me very much, but I did come away with the understanding that I couldn’t stand my parents. I realized it during a session when I heard myself blurt out, “I can’t stand my parents.”
So on the Sunday before the Monday that I was to return to the prison to see Sheryl Harrison, I used her as an excuse to be late arriving at my parents’ house in Greenwich, Connecticut. It was a fund-raising cocktail party, which by 4:00 P.M. would be filled with worthy people raising money for a worthy cause. When I did finally arrive, I would be the only person there who didn’t write a check.
But I had a job to do, and a client to maybe represent, so I opened Sheryl Harrison’s case folder to learn what she was about and how she came to find herself in prison.
The first thing I looked at was a color photograph of Charles Harrison lying facedown on the couch. Blood had spread from his neck, at least twelve inches out to both sides. It was as if the photographer had said, “Charlie, lie down over there, with your head on that bloody Rorschach test.”
It was among the most disgusting things I had ever seen, though it quickly took a spot near the back of the list when I saw some of the other photographs. Those had Charlie turned facing up, revealing the wound that caused his demise. It was literally ear to ear, and it made me glad that Sheryl Harrison was handcuffed to the table when we met.
The file wasn’t terribly thick, though the truth is I wouldn’t know a thick murder file from a thin one. But in this case it wasn’t exactly a whodunit; Sheryl said she “dunit” immediately, and the police, led by Detective John Novack, seemed to have competently crossed all the “t”s and dotted the “i”s. There was some written evidence that Novack initially doubted her confession, but no indication
that ever went anywhere.
There was some background information on the victim, and it’s safe to say that Charlie’s life was not an exemplary one. He had been arrested four times and convicted twice of nonviolent crimes, though his nonviolence only seemed to extend to his felonies.
Police had been called to the home four times in the previous six months for domestic violence incidents, including twice when Charlie claimed he had hit her because she came at him with a knife.
Charlie had managed to avoid prison for the felony convictions, and was never arrested for domestic violence. In fact, Sheryl was arrested one of the times that Charlie claimed she went after him with a knife, something that in retrospect must have seemed more credible once Charlie had his throat slit. Sheryl also had a history of drug use, though that had been a number of years earlier.
The couple’s only child was Karen, eight years old at the time of the murder. Fortunately, she was at school when her mother took a blade to her father’s throat.
Maybe my parents weren’t as bad as I thought.
By the time I finished the file, I knew there was no way I would feel comfortable representing Sheryl Harrison. What she did, no matter how big a slimeball Charlie was, was reprehensible. Even though the loss of life that she was now hoping for would have been a good thing if it saved her daughter, Sheryl was just not someone I wanted to spend time with. Let somebody else do it.
I arrived at my parents’ house at 5:00 P.M., an hour after I had been told to be there. If they were annoyed, they didn’t show it, though annoyance was not something they ever displayed in public.
They made a big show of introducing me to everyone. I knew I had met at least half of those people before at similar functions, but no one admitted to it, and I certainly didn’t. The same thing would happen next time if, God forbid, there was a next time.
It wasn’t until at least an hour later that my father called me aside and reminded me that the invitation had said four o’clock.
I nodded. “I know, but I’m on a big case, and I got caught up in the work.”
He looked pleased. “That I’m glad to hear. What kind of case is it?”
“Murder,” I said, and happily waited for the double take, which came on schedule. I waited just a beat before dropping the bomb. “Pro bono.”
His faint, ironic smile told me that he felt he should have expected something just like this. “Sounds like quite a career move. Murder … you’re starting at the top. No sense fooling around with armed robbery, or embezzlement.”
“But there’s still a chance for some upward mobility,” I said. “I mean, it’s not like she’s a mass murderer.”
“She?”
“Yes. She cut her husband’s throat with a steak knife.”
Just then my mother walked over, probably curious and a little concerned about what the conference was about. “Our son is representing a murderer,” Dad said.
She recoiled for a moment, and then said, “Jamie.” Mother could make the word “Jamie” mean “Jamie, you’re an asshole and a complete disappointment,” merely by adjusting her inflection.
“Jamie, this is simply not a good idea,” Dad said.
“Yet it feels right,” I said.
My mother frowned, something she was incredibly accomplished at. She had at least fifteen different frowns in her repertoire, which covered every possible displeasure she wanted to exhibit. “It’s like I’ve always said, he has his uncle’s genes.”
She was referring to Dad’s brother Reggie, a criminal attorney for almost thirty-five years, during which time he had made virtually no money at all. Reggie occasionally showed up at family functions, but he was not exactly welcomed with open arms, and was obviously even less happy to be there.
The conversation quickly came to an end, and my parents went back to circulating among their guests. It left me with a slight feeling of triumph, but then a stronger one of horror.
I had decided not to represent Sheryl Harrison, but if I followed through on that instinct, my parents would think they won, that I had obeyed them.
I had just gotten myself a client.
For Sheryl, Sunday was either the best or worst day of the week. The sole determining factor was whether Karen came to visit; it was literally the only thing in the world that Sheryl looked forward to or had any interest in. Which meant that this particular day was going to be a “best” day, the first one in more than a month.
For a long time Karen was there almost every Sunday, but the percentage started to decline as her health worsened. What also declined was the level of honesty between them; what were formerly open, candid conversations had become guarded and secretive.
On Karen’s part, it represented a desire to protect her mother. She knew that she was her mother’s entire world, and that Sheryl would do anything for her. She also knew how helpless Sheryl felt because of her imprisonment; there was literally nothing she could do for Karen in any area of her life, other than provide love and understanding. But for what was ailing Karen, love and understanding simply wasn’t going to do the trick.
So Karen avoided talking about her health, which was to say that left nothing in her life she really could talk honestly about. Because her health was gradually taking over everything, impacting all that she did, or didn’t do. And as she grew weaker, the “didn’t do”s were dominating.
On this day, the conversation began pretty much the same as always, with Sheryl asking, “How are you feeling, honey?” She couldn’t help inquiring even though she already knew the answer.
Her mother, Terry Aimonetti, had cared for her granddaughter Karen since Sheryl’s arrest, and had done the best she could in an awful situation. She considered it her obligation to keep Sheryl fully informed of Karen’s condition, even though Karen had sworn her to secrecy. It was one of a number of issues in which Terry was caught in the middle between daughter and granddaughter.
Terry waited outside, as she did on all these visits. She wanted the two of them to be able to talk alone; she thought they could connect better that way.
Karen was fourteen years old, but she seemed stuck on twelve, or maybe thirteen. Her disease had made her more frail, or at least she seemed that way to Sheryl, and the physical changes made her seem younger than she was.
“Pretty good,” Karen said, although Sheryl would have known better even if Terry had not kept her current. Karen looked exhausted, pale, and washed out, and Sheryl had to catch herself so as not to react to Karen’s appearance when she first walked in.
What Sheryl didn’t realize was that Karen was there this morning, and had started coming on mornings more than previously, because by the afternoon her strength had been pretty much sapped.
“You getting enough rest?” Sheryl asked.
Karen frowned. “All I do is rest.”
“It’s good for you. How is Tommy?” Tommy was the latest of Karen’s boyfriends, though “boyfriend” was not a word Karen would ever have used. In Karen’s mind, she and Tommy just “hung out.” Sheryl wasn’t sure what that meant in the modern parlance, and wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
“Okay, I guess.”
“Trouble between you two?”
“No, we just … whatever. I’m staying home a lot … studying.” Karen seemed frustrated, which was completely understandable to Sheryl. She of all people knew what it was like to be prevented from doing what she wanted, when she wanted, though obviously it was for a different reason than the one her daughter faced.
Sheryl put her hand on her daughter’s. “Karen, it’s going to be all right, I swear. Before you know it, you’ll be feeling better and have more energy than you’ve ever had before.” This was one of the areas in which Sheryl was not forthcoming; she would not tell Karen her transplant plans until they were about to become a reality. Karen would be upset and never willingly go along, which was why Sheryl had no intention of giving her a choice.
They talked for a while, but it was a guarded, strained conversatio
n, since neither could broach the only subject that was on their minds, that was dominating their lives.
Five minutes before the hour was up, Karen asked, “How do things look for the parole hearing?”
Sheryl’s parole hearing was coming up, a biannual event that Sheryl had spent absolutely no time thinking about. “Same as last time,” Sheryl said. “It’s just a formality, Karen. No one is granted parole this early.”
It wasn’t the first time Karen had heard that, but each time was like a slap in the face. She had always invested most of her hope in that process. In her view, people were gathering to decide whether her mother should stay in prison. Surely they could decide “no” just as easily as “yes.”
“Can I talk to them this time?” she asked.
“I don’t think so, honey. It’s not done.” Sheryl would never want to put Karen through that, especially since she was telling the truth. The hearing was a formality; there was no chance that at this stage of her term she would be let out, no matter who testified.
“But he was my father. If I tell them that I forgive you, maybe they will.”
“I’ll talk to my lawyer,” she said, which was partially true. She would be talking to her lawyer, but not about Karen testifying before the parole board.
She would be talking to her lawyer about being allowed to die.
Jamie Wagner’s visit to the prison was a major opportunity for Lila Baldwin. A guard at New Jersey State, Lila had been keeping a close eye on Sheryl Harrison for the past six years, watching for anything unusual, anything that she could report. In all that time, there had been nothing really even worth mentioning; Sheryl had been a quiet, model prisoner.
It wasn’t the prison authorities that were particularly interested in Sheryl; in fact, Lila wasn’t sure who she was reporting to. She had a phone number that she was to call. When the process first began, soon after Sheryl’s incarceration, Lila had reported a few insignificant matters, simply to show that she was on top of things and could be relied on. Soon she stopped bothering to do that.
Heart of a Killer Page 2