I meet and marry Piper Gray. She supports me in my career as an assistant district attorney. The years roll by, and I advance in the prosecutor’s office. Gabby does well in school, and Piper and I share a strong and happy marriage. We go on long vacations, have date nights, talk in bed after we make love. I eventually jump ship to the defense side, but I give my staff plenty of warning to prepare themselves. And I make sure to preserve plenty of time for Gabby and for Piper.
On the straight and narrow, Tommy never becomes a mule for the crooked policemen. Never meets Jennifer Yamura to tell her about the drug ring. And Jennifer herself, having no story to print, never winds up at the center of a storm, never has need of a slick criminal-defense attorney, and never ends up dead on the stairs.
These visions from an alternate life only double my anguish over what I have done. I plant my elbows on my desk, bury my face in my hands. My eyes flood.
“I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.”
Sometime later, I pass out. In the morning I awaken, still at my desk, to the distinct feeling that I’m being watched. I lift my throbbing head, look around. The light stinging my eyes, I bring Piper into focus. She’s standing in the doorway, a cup of coffee in her hands. She studies me, then moves into the room, sits down across the desk, tentatively slides the cup to me. “Here,” she says.
I shake my head slowly. I’m sorry—that’s what I want to say, but my throat is so raw and dry I can’t push the words out. So I cough, reach for the cup, and take a sip of coffee.
“I can only imagine what you’re feeling,” Piper says. “But try to remember . . . Tommy was so young. He did what he felt was the right thing to do. And it broke him. It shattered him into pieces.”
I look across the desk at Piper and then down at my cup of coffee, nodding. “I know.”
“You have to forgive him, Mick.”
My eyes begin to tear up again. “There’s nothing to forgive. He did the right thing.”
“Then you tell him so.”
I slide my hand across the desk, reaching for Piper. She takes it in her own.
“Mick,” she says, her eyes filled with what seems to me to be sadness, bottomless sadness. I push myself off my chair, walk around the desk to meet my wife. Piper stands, reaches around me as I kiss her forehead, caress her hair, more tenderness between us than we’ve shared for years.
“Tommy’s going to be all right,” I promise. “We’re all going to be all right.”
Piper looks up at me, forces a smile. She lowers her head against my chest, and I feel a shiver run through her.
“Daddy, you look awful!”
“Gabby!” Piper and I shout in unison, and Piper adds, “How many times have I told you not to sneak up?” Gabby’s face contorts like she’s going to cry until she sees Piper smiling, and we all begin to laugh.
Seeing that she’s brought the house down, Gabrielle goes on. “You smell really bad, too. You should go get a shower.”
I look at Piper, who says, “Yeah, you really should.”
So I do. And when I’m done, I join my wife and daughter in the kitchen, and we eat a big breakfast and tell stories and laugh, and I do something I haven’t done in years. I take a weekday off from work.
21
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11
The clock on my dashboard reads 7:15 p.m. Tomorrow, I am meeting Anna Groszek. Tonight, I visit David Hanson to pick up the money. One of the doors to his four-car garage opens, and I pull inside. Once my car is stopped, I hear the garage door close behind me. I get out, look around. To my right is David’s black BMW 760Li and, beyond it, a gray two-door Bentley Continental GT. To my left is a red Porsche 911 Turbo S Cabriolet. I know there’s another garage on the property where David keeps his super-high-end cars.
What I don’t see is David. Instead, to my surprise, I spot Marcie at the back of the garage. “Something came up at the last minute, and David had to leave,” she says. “You’ll be happy to know he’s driving my Audi A6,” she adds. “It’s white and small. He hates it.”
She’s referring to the warning I gave David about not driving any of his sportier or more luxurious cars. I don’t want potential jurors to see a picture of him in the newspaper climbing out of a Lamborghini.
I remain standing next to my car, unsure what to do, until Marcie taps one of the two black Tumi suitcases sitting on the floor next to her. “I think these are what you came for.” With that, Marcie extends the handle and pulls one of the two wheeled bags to the back of my car. I walk over and get the other suitcase, then join her by the trunk. I press the button on my electronic key, and the trunk opens. I lower the handles on the two bags and deposit them into the trunk, then close the lid.
“Just so you know,” Marcie says. “Coming up with this much cash isn’t as easy as you’d think. David had to take the company jet so he could secretly leave the country and fly to the Caribbean and Mexico. He pulled the first two million from numbered accounts in Grand Cayman. The second half he ‘borrowed’ from some HWI slush fund in Mexico.” Marcie smiles at the last part, probably thinking that David’s withdrawal in some way put the screws to Edwin.
I don’t know what to say to this. I’ve seen it speculated that David’s net worth is close to $100 million. The amount I told David he had to turn over is a small fraction of that. Still, I guess it would be a chore to convert millions of dollars from entries on a balance sheet into cash.
Marcie and I stand face-to-face for a long minute. Then she smiles and asks if I can stay for a bit. I hesitate, but she says, “Come on. I just gave you two suitcases full of money; the least you can do is share a drink with me.” She turns, and I follow her out the door and across the roofed pathway leading to the large mudroom at the back of the house. Marcie takes off her jacket, hangs it on a hook, and slips off her shoes. “Come on,” she says again and leads me down a long hall to the great staircase by the front door.
We ascend the steps to the second floor, walk down another long hallway. Marcie opens a door to what she tells me is her personal sitting room. “Luxurious” doesn’t do the space justice—it’s like a beige-and-tan fantasy out of the Arabian Nights: plush wall-to-wall carpet; low-to-the-ground, U-shaped Roche Bobois sofa; six-foot candle stands; walls adorned with pastel paintings.
“I designed it myself.”
I tell her I like it. “There’s something comforting about it. Soothing.”
Marcie nods. “I had it built out after my recurrence, when I found out the surgeons would have to carve me up like a turkey. I knew I would need a space where I could take care of myself. A healing space. Something very different than the rest of this Gothic rock pile.” Marcie looks around the room, a faint smile touching her lips. “There was a time when I holed up here for a full month. There’s a small bedroom with its own bath behind that door,” she says, nodding to a door on the far wall. “I actually took my chemotherapy in this room. My oncologist came himself, sat with me through the IV. You can get pretty good service if you donate enough money to the right hospitals.”
I glance at the floor-to-ceiling windows making up most of the back wall. “I imagine during the day this room is awash in sunlight.”
“Yes,” Marcie says. “And through the windows, I can take in most of the grounds.” Then she frowns and stands up. “Though at night, the windows tend to darken the room.” With that, she moves to the rear wall, presses a button, and blinds descend over the windows. Marcie motions for me to sit, and I lower myself onto the couch. She sits next to me, close enough that our knees are almost touching.
Before us sits a glass cocktail table on chrome legs. A silver serving tray is positioned in the middle. An open bottle of red wine and two stemmed glasses stand on the tray. Marcie leans forward and pours herself a glass, and then a second one for me. “You like pinot noir?”
I decline, and we sit in silence until Marcie starts up again. “My hair had fallen out, my breasts were gone, my skin was sallow. I became severely depress
ed, had no appetite. I lost so much weight I looked like a concentration-camp survivor.” Marcie takes a sip, gives me a chance to let it all sink in.
“Eventually, my hair began to grow back, though I had to wear a wig for more than a year. There’s a guy in New Jersey who does brilliant work, actually specializes in wigs for chemo patients. I started to eat again, gained some weight. When I was strong enough, I flew the boys to my sister’s house in California to get away. That’s where I was when David was arrested, when I got his call. A most unwelcome surprise.”
Marcie shares all this with no trace of bitterness or sorrow in her voice. Her tone is frank, matter-of-fact, as though she were teaching a tennis lesson. I admire her for it. I also admire how she has turned herself around physically. Three weeks ago, when Susan and I came by, I saw how healthy Marcie looked. What I notice now is how fit she really is. Her sleeveless red-silk blouse and thin black skirt reveal her arms and long legs to be firm, even sculpted. And her chest, as I’d noticed before, is full.
“You’ve been through a lot,” I say. “And it’s probably of small consolation, but you look great.”
Marcie smiles. “Thank you for saying so. I’m always open to a compliment. It makes all the hard work—the weight training, the running, the yoga, the reconstruction—worthwhile.” She reaches out, touches my hand, her own very warm. Then she does something that completely stuns me. She reaches toward the cocktail table, picks up a gold case, opens it, and withdraws a cigarette. She lights it with a sleek ceramic lighter lying next to it.
You’re kidding me. That’s what I want to say to Marcie. You just survived breast cancer, and now you’re smoking?
Marcie leans back and laughs. “Oh, Mick! The look on your face!” She takes a deep drag of the cigarette. “I was never a smoker,” she says. “Not really. Oh, I would bum a cigarette or two when I was drinking, at a party, before my boys came along. But I never craved nicotine. Now, though, I smoke exactly one cigarette a day. It’s my way of looking cancer in the eye and saying, ‘Fuck you. You owned me for a while. You stole my body; you took my health. But now I’m back. I’m in control. And if you show up again, I’ll set fire to your sorry ass just like I’m burning your little pet here.’” With that, Marcie takes another drag and forcefully expels the smoke. Then she leans forward, toward me, and crosses her lean, tan legs. She says, “And one thing you have to admit about smoking: if it’s done right, it’s sexy as hell.”
Instead of agreeing, I steer the conversation in another direction. “How is David holding up?”
Marcie waits a beat, licks her lips, studies me. “He’s worried,” she says. “We both are. Of course. Our little ploy with the house in New York buoyed us for a while, but this whole videotape thing has us shaken.” I nod my head several times, unsure what to say. Then Marcie asks me the same question David had asked. “What guarantee do we have that the blackmailer won’t take our money and disclose the video anyway?”
“Guarantee? There is none. But it wouldn’t make any sense to do so, because then David would have no reason not to tell the authorities that he’d been blackmailed, which would cause the police to hunt down the blackmailer. The smarter play for him,” I say, pretending the blackmailer is a male, “is to take the money and run. And that is exactly what the blackmailer’s told me he’s going to do. Take the money and leave the country.”
“And when he blows through the money in a year or two?”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” I say. “My read on the blackmailer is that he’s not the type to squander it. And even if he did and came back for more, David will already have been acquitted. And with double jeopardy—”
“Or convicted,” Marcie says, interrupting me. “In which case, disclosure of the video would destroy any chance of a successful appeal. And even if David’s acquitted, we’ll face an uphill battle convincing everyone that he really is innocent. If the tape came out then, it’d be a disaster. So, no matter what happens, the blackmailer would be in a position to come back for more—and expect it.”
I have to nod. Marcie’s right.
“I don’t suppose you want to share the identity of the blackmailer?” she asks.
“I can’t. Along with the money, that’s part of the deal.”
Marcie looks away for a quick second, then looks back at me and changes the subject. “How is Piper? How are things between the two of you?”
The question stops me. I blink before answering. “Piper is good.”
“And things are good?” Marcie leans into me as she asks, puts her hand on my thigh. Again, I feel her warmth. Now I’m really taken aback. Marcie is making a play, and she’s not trying to disguise it.
“Marcie . . .” I close my leg, slide away from her.
Marcie purses her lips, repositions herself a little farther down the sofa. Then she laughs. “Mick, you can’t be serious!” She’s covering herself, backtracking now that I’ve rebuffed her. “I expect that you’ve seen couples driven apart by what David and I are going through. But I’d have thought that you could see by now that David and I are working together on this thing. That we’re a team.”
“You certainly seemed to be on the same page when you pulled that stunt with the New York geisha house.”
Marcie takes a last drag on her cigarette, long and slow. Then she leans forward, stubs it out in the ashtray. “The last time you were here, I told you that David and I have had some long talks since his arrest. And we have. Long and difficult. David has told me many things. Things I’d rather not have learned. One thing David didn’t tell me was that he killed Jennifer Yamura, and I can assure you, I asked him point-blank. He swears he didn’t, and I believe him.”
I let this hang in the air for a moment, then ask something I wish was unnecessary. “In these talks you had, did David happen to let you in on his alibi? Where he was when Jennifer was being killed? Not that BS about walking a marathon up and down the sunny banks of the Schuylkill River, but where he really was?”
Marcie hesitates, looks away, and I realize instantly that David has told her. And I also know why Marcie made a play for me.
“Tell me,” I say, “was it a team decision that David had to be somewhere else tonight?”
Now it’s Marcie’s turn to stare at me. “David didn’t kill that girl, Mick. And he can’t go to prison.”
“Whatever it takes?” I ask.
Marcie picks up her glass, takes a sip, and looks away.
“You tell me David insists he didn’t kill Jennifer Yamura. What if he’d told you he did kill her?”
Marcie doesn’t miss a beat. “I’d lie through my teeth and say otherwise. But that’s not the case.”
“I believe you,” I say.
“That David’s innocent?”
“That you’d lie through your teeth.”
Ten uncomfortable minutes later, I’m back in my car. The exchange with Marcie Hanson has left me nonplussed. The whole thing was a setup. The plan was for Marcie to seduce me. Maybe go through with it, or maybe stop it just in time. Either way, Marcie and David would have something on me, something they could hang over my head. A secondary goal was to convince me, once and for all, of David’s innocence. Looking back on the whole weird scene, I know Marcie was honest about one thing: she and David continue to work as a team.
22
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12
“Daddy, I think we should play hockey again,” Gabby says. “I want to go back and see the tigers.”
Gabrielle, Piper, and I are sitting around the island in our kitchen, finishing breakfast.
Piper rolls her eyes. “I think we’ve created a monster.”
Gabby means hooky. The day I took off from work, Piper called Gabby’s school and told them our daughter wasn’t feeling well and was staying home. I’d told Gabby, “We’re all playing hooky today, and we’re going to the zoo.” You’d have thought I’d just told Gabrielle that it was Christmas.
Gabby loved the zoo, running from one set
of animals to another, eager to drink them all in. Watching our daughter so happy filled me with joy, and I promised both Piper and Gabby that there would be lots more trips like that from then on.
That night, after dinner, we watched a Disney flick and cozied up together on the sofa. When the movie was over, I carried Gabrielle up to her bed, dressed her in her pajamas, and tucked her in. While Piper got ready for bed herself, I came back downstairs, ran the dishwasher, let Franklin out one last time, and turned off all the lights. When I climbed into bed next to Piper, I thought she was asleep. I turned onto my side, spooned her, and to my surprise, Piper backed into me. And things took a course they hadn’t taken in a long, long time.
“It’s not ‘hockey,’ peanut,” I tell Gabby. “It’s ‘hooky.’ And if you do it more than once, the principal gets wise and makes you stay after school.” Gabby slumps in her seat, turns away as I try to kiss her good-bye. A quick tickle changes her mood, and she gives me a full-on hug around the neck as I bend over her. “I’m on my way,” I tell Piper, kissing her as I pick my car keys off the counter. “I won’t be home late tonight. Maybe 7:30.”
Plodding along with the heavy traffic on the Schuylkill Expressway, I’m nervous as hell. My trunk has two suitcases stuffed with money, and I’m petrified of getting into an accident. I envision a fender bender sending a cloud of green paper exploding out the back of my car, the highway jam-packed by a mile-long pile up of cars, trucks, and thousands of people streaming through it to pick up the money and run.
I reach town and park the car on the north side of Pine Street, across from Anna Groszek’s house. I look up and down the street as I lift the suitcases out of the trunk. I roll the bags across the street and lift them up the white marble steps and onto the small marble stoop by the front door. My heart pounding, I ring the bell. I hear footsteps on the other side of the heavy door. When the door opens, it isn’t Anna Groszek, but an enormous young man in black pants and a red golf shirt stretched across his broad chest. He’s six three, at least, and must weigh 250 pounds. The man’s eyes are ice blue like Anna’s, his jaw chiseled like the rest of his rock-solid physique. He looks to be in his midtwenties. Without a word, he leans down and grabs both of the suitcases and turns around. I follow him inside.
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