Heart of a Killer

by David Rosenfelt

  So it was up to me to figure out how. I should have done it earlier, but I never wanted to acknowledge that it could happen, and I must have cut the class in law school when they taught us that killing someone you love was a lawyer’s responsibility.

  But there I was, searching and taking notes, when there was a knock on my door. I opened it and there were my parents, breathing heavily from the trudge up the steps. I think I would have been less surprised to see George and Martha Washington.

  “Hello, Jamie,” my mother said, and hugged me. My father clapped me on the shoulder, and they came in. I made coffee, and we talked for a couple of hours, though it seemed like much less.

  They had read about everything in the papers, and knew what I must be going through, so they came to comfort me. My parents. Came. To. Comfort. Me.

  As beyond amazing as that was, it paled in amazing-ness next to the fact that it worked. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t turning cartwheels, but it felt good that they were there, and that they understood what I was dealing with.

  And when they were ready to leave, my father said, “You seem down, Jamie. Depressed and lethargic, and—”

  “Yes, Dad, I—” I interrupted, but he interrupted my interruption.

  “And you seem to be scratching a lot. Are your allergies bothering you?”

  “Allergies? I don’t have…”

  He reached into his pocket and took out two small bottles of pills. There were no labels on the bottles. “One of these is for your depression, and one is for your allergies. But don’t take too many, and don’t take them together. Were you to take six of each, you would certainly not survive. Your death would be painless, but it would be certain, and very quick.”

  I took the bottles from his hand, and the next thing I knew I was hugging both my parents and we were all crying.

  I picked Sheryl up at the prison at 10:00 A.M. Her actual release was fairly easy; the prison officials had prepared well, probably fearing the glare of the press. When she was brought out to me, we hugged briefly. “You doing okay?” I asked.

  She smiled. “Best day in a while, and you made it happen.”

  We walked out of the building, and I saw her take a quick look up at the sky. As we made our way toward the parking lot, she saw the enormous media contingent waiting for us. “So this is real life?” she asked.

  “It is for us celebrity lawyers.”

  As we made our way through the reporters called out questions, some of which were a little too direct and painful for my taste. Sheryl seemed not to hear them, though I knew she had to.

  The forty-five-minute drive to the hospital was an uncomfortable one. We didn’t talk much, although I had an endless conversation going in my head. I tested out a bunch of comments in silence, but none of them came close to accomplishing what I was trying to say.

  One thing I wasn’t going to do, much as I wanted to, was try to talk her out of doing what she wanted. It wouldn’t be fair to her. She knew she still could change her mind, and she knew what the result of her actions would be. My pointing it all out would add nothing to the picture.

  She was quiet as well, but I had no idea what she could be thinking. There were no circumstances in which I could read a woman’s mind, and to hope to succeed with a woman just freed from prison after six years, about to see her daughter and mother, and about to die at her own hands, was completely out of the question.

  We got to the hospital, and Dr. Jenkins was there to greet us. Before we went to see Karen, he took Sheryl and me in to talk to the executive director of the hospital, who actually read to us from a prepared statement, no doubt written by the hospital’s lawyers.

  The hospital was very carefully distancing themselves from anything that Sheryl was planning to do. They were telling Sheryl that they would give Karen excellent care, including a heart transplant should a donor heart become available. In that regard, they had no power and could merely wait for that possible availability, wherever it might come from.

  I agreed with their approach. They were already taking a legal and public relations risk by participating in this at all, and they were demonstrating what I considered great courage by doing so. Protecting themselves in this manner was fine with me, and fine with Sheryl as well. She thanked the executive director and Dr. Jenkins, and everybody in the room knew what she was thanking them for.

  Finally, Dr. Jenkins took us up to Karen’s room, or at least the room they had moved Karen into. It was actually a three-room “suite,” which I suspected was done to give Sheryl privacy. Karen could be in one room, Sheryl in another, and the rest of us in the third.

  In the elevator, Sheryl asked how Karen was, and Jenkins said that she was very weak, and that she had very little time left. He looked at me, and I had the feeing he was trying to tell me something, but I wasn’t close to figuring out what it was.

  When we got there, Terry was alone with Karen, who was in bed sleeping. Terry and Sheryl hugged for a long time, and I could see them both try to keep from crying. Karen looked small and frail; I hoped she was strong enough to survive the surgery. Failing to do so would be unimaginably awful.

  Everyone was counting on her to live her mother’s life.

  Terry went into an adjoining room; she had said her good-byes to her daughter, and it was understandable that she couldn’t be there to watch her “departure.” As a nonparent, I couldn’t come close to imagining what she was going through.

  Sheryl went over to Karen’s bed, leaned over, and kissed her forehead. I wanted to leave the room, to give them privacy, but I couldn’t get myself to do it. Karen opened her eyes and saw her mother standing there. She said something, so softly that it was hard for me to hear. I think it was, “Ma, don’t. I can’t let you.”

  “It’s okay, sweetheart. This is the way it should be. And the truth is that nothing will change; you’ve always had my heart.”

  Then she straightened up and walked to the door to the adjoining room. She took a deep breath and said, “Jamie, can I see you for a second?”

  I nodded and started to follow her into the other room. Before I could do so, Dr. Jenkins came over and blocked my path.

  He spoke softly, so that only I could hear. “Don’t let her do it.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said, because I didn’t.

  “Just don’t let her do it. It’s too late.”

  “But…”

  “Jamie, listen to me. Do not let her do it. I am telling you that it’s too late.”

  “Jamie…,” Sheryl said, with the door to the other room open. “Are you coming?’

  I cast a helpless glance at Dr. Jenkins, but he was neither backing down nor further enlightening me. I followed Sheryl into the room and she closed the door behind us. She had already removed the pills I gave her, the pills my father gave me, from her bag. She pulled me toward her and pressed her head against my chest.

  “You’re the best, Harvard.”

  I couldn’t talk; I literally couldn’t say a word.

  “Some lady is going to be lucky to get you,” she said. “But don’t limit yourself; give some Yale girls a chance.”

  She held up the pills and said, “Ten minutes, right?”

  That’s what my father had told me, and that’s what I had already told Sheryl, so I nodded.

  “Just checking,” she said, then, “This is tougher than I thought it would be, and it’s not like I expected a walk in the park.”

  I gently took the pills from her hand, which surprised her. “What are you doing?”

  “I can’t let you take these,” I said.

  “Don’t go there, Harvard. We’ve been over this. I need you to be strong for me here, okay?”

  I decided to try honesty, because I couldn’t think of anything else. “Sheryl, Dr. Jenkins told me to stop you.”

  “Why?” She was getting annoyed. “This was all planned, okay? It’s—”

  I interrupted her. “He said it’s too late.”

  She was just start
ing to process this in her mind when the door opened and Dr. Jenkins came in. He spoke directly to Sheryl. “You should come back in here right away.”

  The look of panic in Sheryl’s eyes was something I’ll never forget. Dr. Jenkins turned around and went back into the other room, and Sheryl rushed after him. I wanted to follow as well, but it took a few moments to get my legs to swing into action. They were having enough trouble holding me up.

  It took maybe twenty seconds until I heard it, a moan, more like a wail, coming from Sheryl. I finally went back into the main room, but was surprised by what I saw, or really what I didn’t see.

  Karen was lying on her bed, eyes closed and peaceful. But neither Sheryl nor Dr. Jenkins was there. It wasn’t until I heard Sheryl sobbing that I realized she was in the third room.

  I moved to that open door, and when I got there I immediately understood what had happened. Terry was lying on her bed, also with her eyes closed and peaceful. Sheryl’s head was on Terry’s chest, and she was sobbing more softly now.

  Dr. Jenkins saw me come in, and came over to me. All he said was, “We have a donor heart.” He then picked up the phone, waited a moment, and said, “We’re ready.”

  “Did you know, Jamie?” Sheryl was asking me if I knew in advance of Terry’s plans to donate her own heart, in place of Sheryl’s. It was shortly after the operation finished, and Dr. Jenkins had come in a few minutes earlier to say that it had gone very, very well.

  “No,” I said. “I had no idea. All I knew was that she had asked to meet with Dr. Jenkins, and did so. She said she wanted to understand everything that was going to happen. She never said she’d be the one to make it happen.”

  “Would you have told me if you knew?”

  “I haven’t really thought about it, but probably not.”

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “I guess because it was her right to do it, just like it would have been your right. And I would think that you’d understand what she did better than anybody.”

  “It’s not the same,” she said. “I was saving someone innocent in Karen, someone who had done nothing to deserve her fate. My mother was saving me, and no one could describe me as innocent.”

  “The governor just did. The facts just did.”

  “I don’t mean innocent of Charlie’s murder. I mean truly innocent. You know what my mother had to go through because of me? I took away her life long before today.”

  “I don’t agree,” I said. “But if you’re right, then you need to make the most of the life she’s given you.”

  Sheryl didn’t ask me any of the details about how Terry pulled the whole thing off. She would have had to be tested, to make sure she was a match, and she would have had to have gotten the means to take her own life.

  I couldn’t have answered those questions anyway, but I’m sure that Dr. Jenkins was very helpful to her. He’d probably never admit it, but at this point it really didn’t matter.

  Sheryl planned to stay at the hospital with Karen, and in fact Dr. Jenkins said that she should be conscious and mostly alert in a relatively short time. Sheryl was getting ready to see her, and to tell her what her grandmother had done.

  It would be a wrenching conversation, and not one I had any right or desire to witness. I said my good-bye, and left.

  I got home and suddenly felt completely exhausted. I wanted to forget everything that had happened; I wanted to once again think about things that were of no consequence.

  But I knew that was not about to happen, even if I were capable of it. It would be a long while until the media would let me forget. Sheryl’s story was a media sensation. It would have been so under any circumstances, but its direct connection to the terrorist attacks made it far more so.

  I turned off my phone the moment I got home; the answering machine was already full and not accepting any more messages. I listened to them, and one was from Gerard Timmerman, asking that I return the call. I had no idea why he wanted to talk to me, and the truth was that I didn’t give a shit.

  But to the degree that I could control it, I wanted to forget about at least the nuts and bolts of the case. So I set out to do it that very night. I had to write some final motions, some housekeeping details as Sheryl’s representative.

  I wanted to get it over with, so I forced myself to go through the file. When I got to the photo of Hennessey that I had shown Sheryl, I remembered her reaction recoiling from it. Then I thought about Karen, having seen him all those years before, and being told by her father that Hennessey would change their lives for the better.

  I moved on, but came back to Hennessey’s picture, because I realized what had been nagging at me when I presented the parole board with the document Karen signed, the one in which she said she had seen him with her father.

  I called Sheryl, still at the hospital with Karen. Sheryl said that they had spoken, and that together they had a lot to deal with, but she thought Karen was going to be okay. She seemed less sure about herself.

  Jenkins had also provided an additional update. The operation had gone very well; Jenkins called it a complete success. The dangerous part, dealing with the body’s efforts at rejection of the foreign organ, was still to come. But for the moment all looked good.

  “Sheryl, there’s something I need you to ask Karen about, something that was in the file.”

  “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?” she asked. “She’s been through so much.”

  “Sheryl, trust me. This is one question that can’t wait.”

  “Okay.”

  “Terry had said that Karen was upset, because she saw the picture on television of the man that was murdered, and she had seen him before.”

  “I know.”

  “I need to know when that was. I need to know when Karen saw the picture of the murder victim on television.”

  Sheryl put me on hold, and went to the next room to see if Karen was still awake. She came back less than two minutes later. “Just a few days ago. Earlier this week.”

  I thanked her, said good-bye, and called Novack on his cell. He answered with, “I was just going to call you, lawyer. You okay?”

  He was referring to my emotional well-being after what he knew was a difficult day. “I’m doing well,” I said, even though I had no idea if I was. “But I need to talk to you.”

  “What about?”

  “Nolan Murray.”

  “I’m at Cindy’s. Come on over.”

  It took me almost an hour to get there; the traffic was backed up because of an accident on the bridge. I was getting more than a little tired of driving to New Jersey; it sort of defeated the purpose of living in New York.

  I was concerned about the conversation I was about to have with Novack. He was not going to like what I had to say, that was a given. But I needed him to consider it fairly and carefully, because I needed his help if I was going to get anywhere with it.

  Cindy had made sandwiches while waiting for me to get there; I was hungry but did not want to do anything to delay my conversation with Novack. “Remember the letter I presented from Karen? The one where she said she had seen Hennessey six years ago, with her father?”

  “Of course.”

  “She said she saw Hennessey’s picture on television, after he was murdered.”

  Novack started to nod, then stopped himself, and said, “Damn.”

  “Right,” I said. “Hennessey’s picture was never released to the media. He wasn’t even named as the victim. You wanted to hold that back.”

  “So what did she see?”

  “Well, it turns out that she saw the picture on TV earlier this week. She didn’t see Hennessey; I’m betting she saw Laufer. Which means that Laufer was with Charlie Harrison six years ago.”

  Novack thought about it for a few moments, and then said, “I assume you have a theory about what this means?”

  “I’m working on one; you can help me flesh it out.”

  Novack turned to Cindy. “I think we’ll hold off on the sandwich
es for a while.”

  Novack and I agreed I should talk to Emerson, so I called him the next morning. It was Saturday, so he was off, but I left word at the precinct that it was urgent they get in touch with him, and he called me back about a half hour later.

  “Listen, would you have time to talk to me for a few minutes? I’ve been going over my notes on the case, and there’s a couple of things that don’t make sense to me. I think you might be able to clear it up.”

  “Can’t it wait until Monday?”

  “It can, but I’m pretty anxious to get this off my plate. And Monday I’m going to have to start looking for a job.”

  “Okay, sure,” he said. “Maybe an hour?”

  “Great. You want to meet for coffee?”

  “I’m doing some work around the house,” he said. “Why don’t you come over here?”

  He gave me the address, and then said, “It won’t take long, right?”

  “I promise.”

  An hour later I pulled into his driveway on Thirty-eighth Street in Paterson. He came onto the porch to meet me, a smile on his face. “I don’t suppose you know anything about electrical wiring?”

  “You’re not supposed to play with it while you’re taking a bath,” I said. “That’s pretty much it.”

  He smiled again. “Thanks, that’s just the kind of expertise I needed.”

  I followed him in and we sat in the den. “So what’s on your mind?” he asked.

  I came straight to the point. “My client’s daughter said she saw a picture on television of a man who was murdered. It upset her because she saw the same man with her father a long time ago.”

  “Who was the murdered guy?”

  “Well, that’s what’s got me stumped, and I can’t ask her for a while, because she just had a major surgery. I assumed it was Hennessey, but then I realized that his picture wasn’t released to the media. Based on the time frame of when she saw the picture, I’m thinking now it must have been Laufer.”

  He looked puzzled. “Why would Laufer have been with her father?”