by Adam Mitzner
“What happened?”
“They arrested Dana for Lauren’s murder,” he says.
“What?”
“I just left the Commissioner’s office. It was quite the scene. All the brass was there, and far more uniforms than needed. They arrested her. Handcuffed her right in front of me and led her out of the room.”
I’m still having trouble processing. It doesn’t make any sense.
“They got into Lauren’s phone,” Gabriel continues. “Dana sent Lauren a text at 1:03 in the morning, asking her to meet in Central Park. Lauren was dead less than a half hour later.”
It still doesn’t make any sense. “Why would Dana kill Lauren?”
“Dana was the one Lauren was having the affair with,” Gabriel says, as if this information would clarify things for me rather than confuse me even more. “I literally begged Lucian to hold off on the arrest. I asked him to let me go back to Richard with proof of the affair to see how he’d react, or to let me wear a wire with Dana to see if I could get a confession out of her. He said it was above his pay grade. Drake McKenney apparently wanted the headline—today.”
As I’m listening to Gabriel suggest that something is wrong here, I can’t get my head around the one fact that Gabriel doesn’t contest: Lauren and Dana were lovers. Aside from the obvious—that both were married to men—I couldn’t imagine Lauren being so reckless as to have an affair with her deputy.
I think back to Charlotte, the parts of her life that she hid from me, and the way she wrote about passion causing you to do things that previously would have shocked you to your core. I recall telling Lauren how I felt betrayed by Charlotte for not confiding in me about that part of herself. She told me that it wasn’t my place to judge because I didn’t live Charlotte’s life. I had accepted that. Now I wonder if she was really talking about herself.
I was completely unaware of Lauren’s sexual preferences, and Dana’s proclivity to commit murder is even further beyond my ken. But I’ve been a prosecutor long enough to know that crimes of passion—even the premeditated kind—defy rational thought. Dana Goodwin is certainly not exempt from being hurt so badly by a lover that, in a moment of insanity, murder might have seemed a proportional response.
The press room at One PP is at least twice as large as the space devoted to that use at the DA’s office. The back wall is wood paneled and the requisite American and New York State flags flank the podium. A sign reading “Police Department of the City of New York” is front and center, in case anyone didn’t know where they were. It’s already a standing-room-only crowd when Gabriel and I arrive, which means that the invitation to the press must have gone out even before Dana was arrested.
The police department’s press liaison, a thin, thirtysomething blonde I recognize from her prior job as a reporter on the local news, calls everyone to attention. Speaking into the microphone so her voice comes out of the speakers on the sides of the room, she introduces Calhoun Johnson and Drake McKenney. Apparently, no one else is going to get billing aside from the two top dogs.
Johnson steps to the microphone first. Even in civilian clothing, the Commissioner cuts a military figure. McKenney stands off to the side, mentally rehearsing whatever he’s going to say when it’s his turn. I wonder if McKenney has index cards tucked into his suit jacket pocket for this occasion too.
“Earlier this morning, the New York Police Department arrested former Assistant District Attorney Dana L. Goodwin for the murder of Lauren Wright, who was the Chief of the District Attorney’s Special Victims Bureau,” Johnson says. “We are unable to release all of the evidence that brought about Ms. Goodwin’s arrest, but she and Ms. Wright were engaged in a sexual relationship that led to this horrific crime. At this time, Ms. Goodwin is in custody and will be arraigned later today. I want to thank the members of the NYPD who worked nonstop on this investigation, as it was their diligence and dedication that allowed us to make this arrest. And with that, I would like to introduce the District Attorney for New York County, Drake R. McKenney, to say a few words.”
I can almost see McKenney’s smirk. Although arresting Richard Trofino for the crime might have been marginally better for the DA’s future political career, I suspect he’s deriving immense personal satisfaction from the fact that—despite Richard’s manly swagger—the world will now know that his wife preferred the opposite sex. I bet the DA wishes he could revisit their earlier screaming match about Lauren’s candidacy, but this time with McKenney unloading on Richard about his sexual inadequacies.
“I also want to thank the men and women of law enforcement, as well as the men and women from my office, who worked with them on this investigation, for their superior work,” McKenney says. “But I also want to focus once more on the human side of this tragedy. Lauren Wright was a friend of mine, and a model of what prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office strive to be: fair, compassionate, hardworking public servants. We are thankful that, with today’s arrest, we are able to bring some measure of closure to her family.”
He doesn’t once mention Dana Goodwin. Not that I’m surprised, of course, but I do see the irony. By murdering his political rival, Dana Goodwin has done more for Drake McKenney than he ever could have hoped.
34.
DANA GOODWIN
It is an occupational hazard for prosecutors to wonder what it’s like to be a criminal defendant. To have your life stripped naked so that people you’ve never met can render a verdict about something that only you know for certain.
I have seen the process countless times from a different vantage point, and yet, from this side, it is still nothing like I imagined. The feeling of helplessness from being confined is far more overwhelming than I’d considered. I’m acutely aware that if I trip—which is a real possibility given that I am being pushed at all times from behind—I’d certainly break my nose, if not my neck. With my hands cuffed behind my back, I’d have no way of bracing myself before I hit the ground.
I’m escorted from Calhoun Johnson’s office by all four uniform cops. The Latina who read me my rights holds onto my arm but doesn’t say a word. We don’t stop walking until I’m delivered to booking. It’s a process I’ve also seen numerous times—without recognizing the abject humiliation of being catalogued. The fingerprinting, the mug shot, the confiscation of my belt so I lack the means to take my own life.
After booking, I make my one allocated phone call to Stuart. I’m determined not to break down. It’s important to me that I’m handling this turn of events. So, in as matter-of-fact a tone as I can muster, I tell my husband that I’ve been arrested for Lauren’s murder. I detect a brief moment when he chokes up, but I don’t give him enough time to become completely overwrought before I say, “Call LeMarcus Burrows. He’ll tell you what to do.”
Four hours after my arrest, I’m ushered into the courtroom from the side entrance, which is used exclusively for those in custody. Until the moment before the doors opened, my hands were cuffed behind my back.
LeMarcus Burrows is sitting at the table for defense counsel. I first met LeMarcus when he was an ADA in General Crimes, what now seems like a million years ago. I knew from the get-go that he was putting in his time as an ADA to learn the enemy’s secrets, and that as soon as he’d mastered them, he’d switch sides.
One of the first conversations I ever had with him was about the TV show Law & Order. He said, “You know the beginning, the thing they say about two separate-yet-equally-important groups?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“You know it’s wrong, right?”
“No. What’s wrong about it?” I said with a laugh because we were actually discussing the accuracy of a television procedural.
“I don’t know the lines by heart, but it’s basically about how the police investigate crimes but the prosecutors try the offenders.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So, we don’t prosecute the offenders, Dana. We prosecute the accused. They’re only the offenders after th
ey’re convicted.”
He was right, but it didn’t stop me from laughing. “You’re not going to last three years here,” I said. “But if I’m ever in trouble, I’m making my one phone call to you.”
LeMarcus has always been a very handsome man. He has a coffee-colored complexion and he’s gifted with a smile that can either draw you in or cut you down, depending on whether you’re friend or foe. In the years since we first met, he has added debonair to that description. Back in the day, he didn’t seem to care much about his appearance, which might have been because ADAs were paid just enough to cover their rent and food—stylish clothing was something to put off until we entered private practice. Today he’s decked out in a glen plaid three-piece number with a blue tie that captures the hue in the pattern to a T.
He greets me with a smile practiced for just such occasions. By rote, without considering whom he has for a client in this particular instance, he tells me that I need to answer “not guilty” when the judge asks for a plea. Before I can ask him anything, the presiding judge, Phillip Tomasso, does exactly that, shouting out just the one word: “Plea?”
Tomasso likely has a dozen cases to hear this morning. Apparently he’s not even going to allow the presence of an ADA accused of murdering another ADA to slow down his docket.
I say my line: “Not guilty.”
“Bail, Ms. Serpe?” Judge Tomasso says.
Silvia Serpe is the ADA handling today’s arraignment calendar. I know her, but not well. She hasn’t yet looked at me.
“Your Honor,” she says, “the People request that Ms. Goodwin be held without bail. As the court is I’m sure aware, the defendant is accused of a terrible crime. Lauren Wright, the chief of the District Attorney’s Special Victims Bureau, has been murdered. It’s important to send a message to the public that no favoritism is shown because the defendant has connections to the District Attorney’s office.”
LeMarcus offers the predictable counter. That the prosecution’s case is weak, that I have strong ties to the community, including a young son, that I not only have never before been accused of a crime, but have devoted my life to prosecuting criminals.
“If anyone—anyone—believes in the criminal justice system, it is Dana Goodwin. She is no risk of flight and certainly wants to be vindicated in a court of law,” LeMarcus says, his voice rising in that theatrical way he frequently adopts in court.
For the first time since I was brought before him, Judge Tomasso makes eye contact with me. I wish he hadn’t, for all I see in his expression is disgust. Then he takes a deep breath.
“One million or bond equivalent,” he says, and bangs his gavel.
After my hearing, I’m again handcuffed and then deposited back into lockup. The one bright spot is that I’m put in the group that’s transported to Rikers Island, the jail that houses defendants who are confined pending trial.
I can’t touch a bite of dinner, which is a good thing because I’m sure if I ate whatever gray slop is on my plate, I’d feel sick tomorrow. By eight, I’m growing worried that Stuart can’t come up with the money, and that I’ll be spending tonight in a cell. In the morning, I’ll be on the first bus out to Rikers.
But at ten, I’m told to collect my belongings.
As soon as I cross the threshold into freedom, Stuart embraces me tightly. Into my ear, he whispers, “I love you.”
I’m back home a little over an hour later. Our babysitter, Livie, says Jacob fell asleep without any fuss. She doesn’t ask anything about my circumstances, even though it’s obvious to me that she knows. Probably more than I do, in fact, because I haven’t been online yet. I’m not certain if the source of Livie’s knowledge is Stuart or the Internet, however.
After Livie leaves, Stuart and I sit across from each other in our kitchen. Stuart has made me tea, and I am enjoying the warmth of the cup as much as the mint flavor, all the while attempting to come to terms with the fact that I am now an accused murderer.
“I didn’t tell Jacob anything,” Stuart says. “But the reporters were already outside our house when he came home from school. I told him that it was about a big case you were involved in, and he seemed to be okay with that.”
Those same reporters had been lying in wait upon our return. It was a terrifying experience for me, a hardened prosecutor. I shut my eyes and try to shake away the nightmare that awaits my five-year-old son. No matter how hard Stuart and I try to shield him, my son’s blissful ignorance will not be a permanent state. Soon enough, he’ll be able to navigate the Internet. He also has friends whose parents talk about scandalous topics in front of their five-year-olds.
“We’ll have to tell him something soon,” I say. “Before he hears it elsewhere.”
“Maybe it’ll be best for him if he’s not in the city when all of this happens,” Stuart says. “I don’t know . . . He can go stay with my parents, or your sister.”
“No.”
The force of my declaration seems to surprise Stuart. If anything, I wish I’d said it louder. There’s no way in hell I’m giving up what may well be the last months I’ll have with my son. He is the flesh-and-blood reminder of why my freedom—indeed, my life—still matters to me. I need to keep him close, or I’m certain I won’t survive.
I allow myself a moment to imagine life on the run. How much worse would it be than my current predicament? Just Jacob and me, living off the land somewhere tropical. I fantasize that he might even see it as something of an adventure, between the different animals we’d encounter and the prospect of swimming every day. But then reality invades even my efforts at escapism. Jacob won’t be five years old forever. He’ll need to go to school and have friends, and I’ll need to be able to feed, clothe, and shelter him. I have a limited skill set outside of the American justice system, a lack of fluency in any language other than English, and no idea how to create a new identity for us. I flash on going it alone, but I won’t abandon my son. That would be worse than prison. Worse than death.
“LeMarcus told me that he normally asks for a quarter-million-dollar retainer, but as you and he go way back, he agreed to take the deed on our house,” Stuart says, snapping me out of my own thoughts on the futility of escape.
“Awfully kind of him,” I say.
“Yeah. So when all this is over, we’re probably going to be homeless.”
“Speak for yourself,” I say. “The odds are very good that I’m going to have free room and board for the rest of my life.”
He looks at me with tears in his eyes. I know what he’s going to say before the words come out.
I stop him cold. I just can’t go there now.
“I don’t want to talk about it, Stuart. I . . . I just need some time to think all of this through on my own.”
35.
ELLA BRODEN
“Hi, Ella. This is Drake McKenney.”
The call woke me, even though it’s after ten in the morning. I quickly try to shake the grogginess out of my voice.
“Oh . . . hello . . .”
I’ve never spoken to Drake McKenney one-on-one. I’ve shaken his hand a few times and even shared the platform with him at press conferences, where I stood off to the back while he, front and center, would take credit for the accomplishment that was usually my doing. He never stopped by my office, although I worked one floor below him for five years. Never even called. Not after I won at trial, or when I was given the office’s highest commendation, or when I resigned. Not even after Charlotte went missing.
“Did I catch you at an inopportune moment?”
“No . . . it’s fine. How do you know my cell number?”
“Ah, you’d be surprised what we know about our former ADAs.”
I’m sure he meant for the remark to sound witty, maybe even charming, but it comes across as creepy, as if I’ve been under surveillance.
“Let me get right to the point,” he says, perhaps because he too realizes that his effort at humor fell flat. “Can you find some time to meet with me today
?”
“Okay . . .” I say, tentatively.
“Great. I’m going to put you down as my eleven thirty. I’ll see you then.”
I ask him what we’ll be discussing, but he doesn’t respond. When I pull the phone from my ear, I see that our call has ended.
It hardly matters. I’ve already deduced the reason Drake McKenney wants a private audience with me. It’s the only thing that the DA could be calling me about, now that the chief of his Special Victims Bureau is dead and her deputy under arrest: he wants me to run Special Vics.
I jump into the shower and blow-dry my hair straight, like I did for work back in the day. Then I pull out my lawyer clothing—a dark blue pantsuit and lighter blue silk blouse—which hasn’t been called into service for more than nine months.
Looking in the mirror, my image seems strange to me. I’m so accustomed to seeing unemployed Ella Broden—no makeup, in jeans and a T-shirt—or Cassidy, with her heavy mascara and skin-tight clothing, but not this totally put-together lawyer staring back. I haven’t seen her for a long time.
An hour later, I’m back at the District Attorney’s office for the first time since my last day as an ADA. When I left, the joke among my colleagues was that I’d be back all the time to meet with them on behalf of clients. My father’s practice, however, is nearly all federal-based, so during my three months of employment with him, I logged time in the United States Attorney’s office, talking to the prosecutors there. I didn’t have any cause to visit my old stomping grounds.
Being back at One Hogan is like returning to high school after you’ve graduated—it’s an odd feeling. I no longer belong in the place that defined me for so long. That point is made clear when I don’t even recognize the security guard—a guy who looks like he’s still in high school himself. I apparently don’t register with him either, because he asks to see my identification and instructs me to put my belongings on the conveyer belt.
“Where’s Richie?” I say, a reference to the man who had his job for at least thirty years.