The old woman laughs. “Hardly. No, you can thank the Philadelphia Police Department for my cameras, Mr. McFarland.”
“You have me at a disadvantage,” I say, causing the woman to chuckle again.
“Yes, I guess so. Big disadvantage.”
“I mean that you know my name, and I don’t know yours. Will you share that with me?”
The old woman looks up at me. “Anna Biernacki. Anna Groszek, ever since I married my worthless ex-husband. We both came from Poland. His idea, my genius husband, that we come here, to America. He tells me, ‘We go to the United States, we work hard, we get rich, we come home, live the good life.’ I say okay. So we come to America, and I work hard while he gets drunk. Ten years later, Solidarity brings democracy to Poland, and my husband decides it’s a good time to return home—by himself. I don’t hear anything from him for months, but a friend calls me from my city of Poznan. She says Emeryk told everybody I am dead. Married Agneszka Walczak. Six years older than Emeryk and the face of a cow. But her father is wealthy and old. My husband, he’s done well for himself.” Anna pauses, then spits out his name. “Emeryk.”
I let her stew for a minute, then bring her back to why we’re here. “So . . . you made a tape.”
Anna Groszek’s eyes narrow. “My security camera makes the tape. When my husband leaves, I start my own cleaning company. I hire four girls to work for me, all from Poland. I put flyers in doors where the wealthy people live. I make sure my girls work hard, do a good job. Word of mouth, and I have more business than I can handle. So I hire more girls, and more again. Over the years, I save my money. I buy a big house. Four stories. A dump. So I put in new plumbing, new electric, new roof, new kitchen, bathrooms. Good carpet, expensive drapes. It’s very nice.”
“On Pine Street, this house?”
Anna glances at me, annoyed, but doesn’t deny it. “Two years ago, I am robbed. Thieves break in through the back door, take all my sterling silver. A hundred years old. My grandmother’s. I bring it over from Poland. They also take a pendant my mother gave me when I was sixteen.” Anna shakes her head, then continues. “So I call the police. After a very long time, one policeman shows up at my house. He takes a statement, tells me to call my insurance company. And that’s it. I never hear nothing more from the police. The next month, I am robbed again. I come home and my TV is gone. I go upstairs, where the rest of my jewelry is. It should be there because after last robbery I buy heavy safe and hide it in the closet. Except now I find the safe is gone, too!
“So. Another call to the police. Another long wait. The same policeman shows up and takes a statement. I ask him what has been done on the first robbery. He looks at me like I’m crazy. He says they almost never arrest someone for burglary because the burglars come when no one’s home to see them. He says they can’t arrest someone if they don’t know what he looks like. That’s when I know I am going to have to do police job for them. I buy cameras for the backyard. Good ones, too, weatherproof, can see in complete darkness. They come with digital video recorder and DVD burner.”
“You had the cameras pointing at Jennifer Yamura’s house?”
“No. One camera I point into my yard, the other in the alley. But that second one, something hit it, lifted it a bit, so it shows back of girl’s house. Lucky for me,” Anna adds, and smiles. Then shrugs. “Not so lucky for others.”
“Why haven’t you gone to the police with the video?” I know the answer already, of course, but I have to go through the motions.
Anna sighs. “I am tired, Mr. McFarland. And I’m getting old. I want to go home.”
“And you want to fly first class.”
Anna smiles. “At the front of the plane, in one of those seats you can lie down in. And when I land, I take suite at the City Park Residence Hotel. Call Emeryk, talk to his bovine wife, tell her I’m back, and rich.”
“Your house on Pine Street must be worth a pretty penny.”
“It’s like Titanic,” says Anna Groszek. “Underwater. I refinance to make the repairs. Now is worth less than balance on mortgage.”
I look across the park, my eyes taking in Rouge, the upscale restaurant on Eighteenth Street. I say nothing more, wait for Anna to say what she’s really here to tell me. It doesn’t take long.
“Three million. For the videotape. Tell your Mr. Hanson.”
“What?” I start to jump up but catch myself, sit back down, look directly at Anna Groszek. “That’s crazy. He’ll never agree to that.”
Anna looks back at me, her blue eyes cold, matter-of-fact. “I know all about your client, Mr. McFarland. He’s a very rich man. Crazy for him not to pay. I know all about you, too, Mr. Criminal Attorney. And that prosecutor—the one who wears the fancy suits, wants to be the next DA, then mayor—how happy do you think he would be if I were to call him instead of you? Ach. The three of you. Moe, Larry, Curly. One, two, three. Three million.”
For the first time, I wonder whether Anna might be slightly unhinged. But her eyes appear lucid, and her tone couldn’t be more serious.
“Still, you didn’t go to the DA . . .” I study her face for confirmation.
She shrugs. “He has no money.”
I nod. This is a business deal to her, pure and simple. She has an asset to sell, and she’s peddling it to the highest bidder. David Hanson.
“And what if my client says no? What if he’d rather take his chances facing that tape than giving in to blackmail?”
Anna Groszek shakes her head. “I put my faith in you. Your client will not like the amount, but you will persuade him. You must persuade him. You know this. He must pay, or all is lost.”
I look down at the ground. Of course she’s right. “Where will you want the money wired?”
“Ha!” Anna blurts loudly. “Wired. I want cash, Attorney McFarland. I want to see the money, have it in my hands. It will be for me to deposit it in a bank and wire it to Poland. Then I give other copy of video.”
“What assurance do I have that you won’t give a copy of the video to the police once you get the money?”
Anna Groszek stands up and looks down at me, her icy eyes flaring. “You have my word. That is your assurance.” She turns away.
“Wait,” I say, standing. “Where . . . when . . . ?”
“Two weeks from today,” she answers, turning back to me. “Bring it to my house. Use the front door.”
And with that, Anna Groszek turns again and walks away.
17
MONDAY, OCTOBER 1
The following Monday, at two o’clock, I’m standing by the reception desk going over some phone calls with Angie when Vaughn walks up.
“I’m ready when you are,” he says. I look at him, uncomprehending. “The Hanson case . . . it’s all laid out in the war room.”
“Right. Good,” I say. A couple of days ago, I told Vaughn to lay the case out on the table in the small interior conference room that we call the “war room.” I do this with every case, a month or so before the trial. Vaughn and I review everything in detail, figure out the prosecution’s strengths and weaknesses. Then we turn to our case, decide the best order to present our witnesses and evidence, and put our own case under a microscope. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
Angie watches Vaughn walk away, then turns back to me. “Do you feel all right? You don’t seem yourself. Are you sick?”
“Maybe a little,” I say. “Change of seasons.”
Half an hour later, I’m sitting in the war room, and Vaughn is in the midst of his presentation. The way he sees it, Devlin Walker will open up with Matthew Stone, the leader of the crime-scene unit. “They start by showing the body pictures to get the jury hating Hanson right away. Stone will also testify that David’s hair and prints are all over Jennifer Yamura’s house. After the CSU witness, Devlin will . . .”
Vaughn talks on, but his voice fades into the background as I stare at the crime-scene photos. Jennifer Yamura, faceup on the stairs. Her white cotton T-shirt and tan shorts. The
red strawberry bruising to her knees, caused when she crawled across the rough concrete floor. And the blood. Everywhere. Blood on Jennifer’s hair and clothes. Blood on the steps. Blood covering the concrete block at the bottom and all over the floor near the steps. And, though it doesn’t show in the photos, blood leading away from the steps on the basement floor, as revealed by the CSU’s luminol.
I now know from the video that David was the last of the men who visited Yamura’s house that day and who therefore had to be the one who happened upon her after she’d been pushed down the stairs and managed to start crawling away. He wasn’t the one who pushed her, but he was the one who dragged her back to the steps to bleed out. I wonder what David’s reaction was when he found her, how much time it took him before he decided to finish her off. It couldn’t have taken long; he was only in the house for five minutes.
“Mick? Mick?”
I look up and see Vaughn staring at me. “I’m sorry,” I say. “Can we finish this tomorrow? I don’t feel great. I think I’m coming down with something.”
Vaughn says sure, no problem, but I can tell he’s wondering what’s going on. He gathers a few of the papers and leaves the room.
I look back down at the table, reach for the manila envelope containing the autopsy pictures. Now I see Jennifer Yamura’s face, empty of expression, eyes flat. The eyes of the dead. I have seen thousands of photographs like these. Pictures of dead men and women. Young, middle-aged, old. Stabbed, shot, strangled, even hacked to pieces. I long ago became desensitized to them. Just more evidence, to present to juries when I was a prosecutor, to argue against once I became a defense attorney. But the pictures of Jennifer Yamura jar me. I close the folder and slide it away. I close my eyes, take deep breaths, one after another.
Christ, this is awful. So fucking awful.
I get home around seven. Piper is pacing the kitchen, talking on her cell phone. Gabby is at the table, a piece of construction paper in front of her. Gabby’s crayon drawing is a tangle of yellow and green and brown, with jagged lines of black. Gabby sits with her left elbow on the table, her head in her hand. A familiar pose of frustration.
“Dad, can you tell Mom to get off the phone? She’s been on it forever.”
I look over at Piper, who turns away from me, then leaves the kitchen for the deck. Ten minutes later, she’s back. By now I am sitting with Gabby, helping her to finish her masterpiece, hearing why each color I choose and each stroke I make is wrong. Piper walks to the refrigerator, pulls out a casserole dish containing the leftover chicken soufflé from last night.
“Tommy wants you to call him,” she says.
“Is that who you were talking to?”
“I’m just going to reheat this, since you weren’t here last night.”
“What did Tommy want?”
“I told you, he wants you to call him.”
“I mean, what was he talking about with you for so long?”
She turns her back to me. “Just call him. Please.” She slides the leftovers into the oven. Closes the oven door, then walks past the table. “The timer’s set for thirty minutes. Set the table just for you and Gabby. I’m going upstairs. I’m not hungry.”
Gabby glances at me and purses her lips, then resumes drawing. “I don’t want chicken again,” she tells me. “Can you make spaghetti instead?”
I muss her thick, black hair. “Sure, why not?”
I start to stand, and Gabrielle asks me, “Daddy, why does Mommy cry all the time?”
I’m taken aback but try not to show it. I sit back down. “What do you mean, all the time?”
“Last night. Mommy made me go to bed early, and I heard her crying in your room.”
“Well, maybe her tummy hurt.”
“The night before, too.”
I look down, try to process what my daughter is telling me.
“No, honey. Mommy’s just not feeling well, that’s all. She’ll be better soon.”
But will she? Piper knows more, much more, than she’s told me. And in the end it’s all going to come out.
“Daddy? Daddy?” I hear Gabby’s voice in the distance and refocus my attention on her.
“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” I ask.
“Are you sick like Mommy?”
“No, why?”
“Because now you’re crying, too.”
It startles me. But she’s right. Tears are sliding down the side of my face.
An hour or so later, Gabby has been fed, and she’s planted in front of the television watching one of her favorite videos. I lift my iPhone from the kitchen counter and tell Siri to call Tommy. He answers in just two rings.
“What’s up?” I ask. “Piper says you want to talk to me.”
“I want us to go see Mom and Dad.” Tommy and I have a tradition of visiting our parents’ graves every year, usually on Father’s Day. We didn’t make it this year because I was so wrapped up in the Hanson case.
“Sure,” I say. “As soon as the Hanson trial is over, we can—”
“I don’t want to wait,” Tommy interrupts me. “Let’s go this weekend.”
“Tommy, I’m getting ready for the trial. I can’t just . . .” I stop in midsentence. “All right. Saturday morning. I’ll pick you up; we’ll drive together.”
“If it’s all the same, I’m going to ride my bike,” Tommy says, referring to his beloved Harley.
“No problem. I’ll see you at the cemetery. How’s ten o’clock sound?”
Tommy says that’ll be fine.
“Hey . . . ,” I say before hanging up. “What’s going on with Piper? Gabby just told me she cries all the time.”
There’s silence on the other end of the line.
“And what gives with the two of you? I feel like you’re both keeping something from me, and I don’t like it.”
Tommy pauses. “We’re helping each other through some things.”
“What things?”
Another pause. “I’ll see you Saturday.”
“I don’t like secrets.”
But the phone’s gone dead.
18
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 3
It’s just after four in the afternoon. Vaughn and I are in the war room, finishing up our strategy session on the Hanson case. The table is cluttered with files, legal pads, photographs; the trash can overfilled with the remains of the lunch we ordered in from Marathon Grill. In the far corners of the room stand two aluminum easels supporting thirty-six-by-forty-two-inch pads of paper, on which are scribbled in black marker the names of each side’s potential witnesses. For the prosecution: arresting officers Tim Kujowski and Nicholas Pancetti; John Tredesco, lead detective; Ari Weintraub, medical examiner; Matthew Stone, CSU; Barbara King, David’s secretary; Albert Mays, manager of David’s garage.
For the defense, I’ve written the name Lonnie Gorman, a twice-convicted second-story man recently arrested for a burglary just two blocks from Jennifer Yamura’s house. David Hanson’s name is also listed on the board—with a big question mark next to it. Finally, though it’s doubtful I could compel testimony by any of them, I’ve listed every one of the seventeen officers of the Thirteenth and Fifteenth Districts the grand jury recommended be charged, along with Lawrence Washington and Terrance Johnson, the two surviving officers who testified before the grand jury in return for immunity.
Vaughn and I go around and around about our defense. We’ve agreed that we must present a plausible alternative to David Hanson as the murderer of Jennifer Yamura. We have two choices. On the one hand, Jennifer’s missing laptop, iPhone, watch, and money support the argument that she was killed as part of a robbery. That’s where Lonnie Gorman comes in. On the other hand, we have the grand-jury angle. The crooked cops clearly had a motive to kill her. And in slaying Stanley Lipinski, who’d turned state’s evidence against them, we know at least one bad cop was willing to take a life.
Vaughn and I argue back and forth for a while about which of our two alternative-killer theories to pres
s. We could offer both theories up to the jury, let them bite on whichever seems the more appetizing. But then we would lose the force of conviction, the persuasive power carried by the message that this is what we believe.
I stand up, walk to the credenza, lift a bottle of Fiji water from a silver serving tray. “Let’s turn to David,” I say.
“Yes, let’s,” says Susan, who’s appeared in the doorway. “What are we going to say about the fact that Hanson stayed in the house for who knows how many hours with the bloody, murdered body of his lover? How do we address the coldness of the soul of a man who could do that?”
“Dissociative state,” I answer immediately. “A person of normal mental health like David Hanson happens upon the murdered body of his girlfriend. He’s desperate not to have their affair revealed and irrationally latches onto the hope that he can clean up the house, remove all traces of himself. But he’s never seen a murder victim before, let alone the body of someone he’s had an intimate relationship with. So his mind splits. The part of his consciousness that holds his humanity—his compassion, his love, his morality—numbs itself completely, while the other part of him—his practical side, the lizard brain—takes over and starts cleaning.”
Susan smirks. “I don’t think they’ll buy it, not with David. I think the jury is going to see him as a cold fish. A rich, calculating prick perfectly willing to do whatever it takes to protect himself.”
“Which brings us,” Vaughn says, “to the big question. Do we try to change the jury’s view of David by putting him on the stand? Let him talk to the jury, look in their eyes, and tell them he didn’t do it?”
Now that I know David had to be the one who dragged Jennifer back to the stairs to die, I can’t ethically put him on the stand to perjure himself by denying his involvement. Not that ethics would stop me. Indeed, as I’ve charted it out in my head, my literally “criminal” defense of David Hanson will necessitate a heaping dose of perjury. But I can’t share that with Vaughn or Susan, or anyone. Not yet.
“Think about it,” Vaughn continues. “We could have David testify about sponsoring those three foreign musicians in New York. Humanize him.”
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