“You took the freight elevator?” I asked the oldest of the three officers, whom I assumed to be in charge.
“As directed,” he confirmed.
Jack’s building had a keyed exit for residents in back, next to the freight elevator, with no cameras. I didn’t want footage of him disheveled and in handcuffs getting leaked to the media.
They attached his ankle bracelet and checked the signal while he walked through every inch of the apartment and then out into the hallway to make sure that the monitor alerted before he made it to the elevator or staircase.
During the entire process, Jack moved like a scared cat, hunched, like someone might grab the scruff of his neck at any second and throw him back into a box of other animals. When the officers finally left, they made Charlotte leave with them, and she gave Jack a final kiss on the cheek before departing. When I locked the door behind them, Jack seemed to grow two inches taller.
I looked out the window, watching a woman on the sidewalk wrangle a dozen dogs ranging from a mastiff to a rat terrier, while Buckley and Jack hugged and cried. The emotions that come with pretrial release are complicated. There’s the obvious relief of being home. There’s the temptation to think that a favorable bail decision bodes well for the future. But there’s also intense sadness at the thought that these days may be numbered. The days pending trial can become a kind of prison sentence in and of themselves.
Jack let out a small whoop of relief. “Is it terrible that all I want to do is take a shower and sit on the sofa with you and eat pizza and watch movies?”
Buckley ran to the coffee table and held up two DVDs that she had already set aside: Working Girl and Ghostbusters. “Great minds think alike. I’ve got your favorites ready to go.”
“Excellent. Just let me talk to Olivia about some legal matters before she goes.”
JACK GAVE ME A QUICK hug once we were alone. I was surprised by how natural it felt. “I still can’t believe it. I thought I’d never get out of there. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
The look in his eyes took me to a night at Arlene’s Grocery, back when it was first converted from a bodega-slash-butcher shop into a bar with live music. Jack and I were dancing near the front of the stage. The band was one of our favorites—the Spoiled Puppies. That night, the band broke out into a cover of “Anything, Anything” by Dramarama.
We danced so hard while the singer promised candy, diamonds, and pills that Jack’s arms were slick with sweat when he wrapped them around me as we jumped to the beat. And when the final chorus came, the band added one more repeat of the line, “Just marry me, marry me, marry meeeee.”
The lights came up, the band fell silent, and Jack dropped to one knee. I couldn’t even hear what he had to say over the sound of applause and wolf whistles from the back of the bar—Charlotte, Owen, some college friends who I thought had all come to celebrate our graduation. But I saw the ring. And I saw the look in Jack’s eyes—longing, pleading, vulnerable. He needed me so badly, and, in that moment, I believed we’d be one of those couples who brought out the best in each other for the rest of our lives. I made him stronger. He made me softer.
I shook myself out of the memory. Jack needed me now, but for a very specific purpose, and I had done my part so far by getting him home.
I acted like my performance at the bail hearing was no big deal.
Jack settled into his sofa like it was the most comfortable place in the world. “I had no idea about the gunshot residue until the ADA mentioned it. Is that why they suddenly booked me?”
I nodded.
“The detective wouldn’t tell me. That test has to be wrong. Or the police faked the results or something. Do they really do that?”
I wasn’t above arguing that police would intentionally doctor the evidence—it was an argument I’d made more than could possibly be true—but did I really believe it? No. And, sure, accidental transfers happened, but it was yet another unlucky coincidence, and too many of those could add up to proof beyond a reasonable doubt. “Jack, can you think of any way you would have that residue on your shirt? Were you ever around a gun, or someone else who fired a gun?”
I was shocked when he answered yes. Long before Molly was killed, Jack already hated guns. I was there the first time he ever held one. My father took us to the range. Jack was terrified, positive that he was going to be the first victim of an accidental shooting in the history of the Roseburg Shooting Club.
“It’s research for a book,” he said. “I’ve been going to a shooting range, trying to understand the gun culture.”
“A book about Penn Station?”
“Not directly. Fictionalized.”
From what I gathered, Jack’s previous novels were all fictionalized versions of his real life. His debut novel—the one he’d written while Molly supported him—was about a young couple whose female half was a pathological liar and a serial cheater. The second was about a man who became a father after struggling with mental health issues. The third was about a male writer whose only meaningful relationships were with his wife, daughter, and lesbian best friend. You get the drift.
“That’s great, Jack. If we can explain that GSR, all they have is speculation. Why didn’t you tell me this at the bail hearing?”
“I don’t know. I guess I was still in shock. And I didn’t think that was possible. I mean, it would have been probably a month ago. And I don’t even know if I wore that shirt.”
“But you could have.”
“I honestly don’t remember. How long can that stuff stick around?”
“Let me worry about the details.” I had him write down the name of the shooting range.
“And your book will make clear that you were doing this research?”
“The one I’m working on now is almost finished. The gun research was for the next one.”
“But do you have notes or something?”
“No, I don’t work like that. It lives in my head until I find the story. But I told the guys there that I was a writer and wanted to learn about guns. I’m sure they’ll remember.”
He still didn’t seem to understand that the prosecution wasn’t going to accept everything he said at face value.
As he handed the notepad back to me, he asked if I had gotten in touch with Madeline yet. “Once she tells the police that she was the one who picked our meeting place and time, that knocks out the coincidence of me being at the field that morning.”
I had sent an e-mail to her from Jack’s account after he was arrested, but, with everything that had been going on, I hadn’t even logged into Jack’s e-mail accounts for the last couple of days. “I wanted to talk to you about that, Jack. Maybe it’s not just a coincidence. Other people had a motive to go after Neeley. If someone else wanted Neeley dead, you were sort of the perfect fall guy.”
“You think Madeline set me up?”
I explained the possibility that someone had read his e-mail exchange with Madeline and then took advantage of knowing exactly where he would be. When Buckley had first raised the possibility the night of Jack’s arrest, it had sounded fairly simple. Now that I was explaining the theory aloud, I saw the flaws in the hypothesis. Einer had already contacted Gmail with a privacy release from Jack. The only log-ins to Jack’s account since he first told Charlotte about seeing the girl in the grass were from the IP address at Jack’s apartment, so there was no way anyone had hacked into his account unless they did it from his own wireless network. Most important, even if someone had known where Jack would be that morning, they’d also have to know that Neeley would be there. The whole setup sounded too complicated.
When I was done thinking aloud, Jack stared at me in silence. It dawned on me that this was the first chance he’d had to focus on me since his arrest. At both the precinct and the bail hearing, he’d been panic-stricken, threatened with imminent incarceration. He was no longer looking at me like his savior. He looked hurt.
“Is this a cross-examination?” he aske
d.
“What? No. Jack, I’m just going through every possible explanation.”
“Except you pretty much trashed that one all on your own. You don’t think I did this, do you?”
“Of course not, but I’m seeing the problems now with the e-mail hack theory. And I have to think about how all this is going to look to the prosecution. They seized an entire file cabinet of material about Malcolm Neeley from your office, Jack. And I saw your Internet history—you did an awful lot of fishing around about Neeley.” I had been very careful not to ask Charlotte and Buckley what had become of Jack’s laptop. “You told the police that you were only going along with the other families in the civil suit, but the DA will make it look like you were obsessed. I mean, the value of Neeley’s real estate?”
“It’s a civil suit. How much the man’s worth is relevant. You know, maybe you should go work for the other side, because you’re twisting everything around.”
“No, you are.” I actually said the words, No, you are. I forced myself to take a deep breath. I knew my tone had sounded harsh, but this conversation was reminding me of how sensitive he had always been, so quick to feel rejected. When the first literary agent he approached turned down his work, he had torn the rejection letter to shreds and refused to write another word for two months. To Jack, what every writer expected as part of the journey was utter humiliation.
We heard footsteps in the hall. Buckley was standing in the doorway, looking at me suspiciously. “Is everything okay?”
“It’s fine,” Jack said. “I’ll come get you when we’re done.”
When we were alone again, I reassured Jack that I wasn’t accusing him of anything. “My job is to get your side of the story, which means asking hard questions.”
“Then just listen, okay?” His voice was calmer now. “Most of the stuff in the files was just paper sent to all the plaintiffs by our lawyer. As for the rest, the research on Neeley was something we did together—Buckley and me. It’s something her therapist suggested. I know, it sounds weird, but I’ve been encouraged to stop sheltering her from information about the shooting. They tell me to be open about everything—absolute truth. Molly’s death was hard on Buckley—”
“Obviously—”
“No, more than the obvious. The morning of the shooting, it was snowing. Molly was substituting at a school in Port Washington, so she was reverse-commuting for that. She and Buckley had both been hoping for a snow day, and it didn’t happen. But Buckley wouldn’t wake up, and then she tried playing sick. It’s just a stupid thing kids do in the winter. But Molly spent so much time dragging Buckley out of bed that she missed the early train. She waited twenty minutes to catch the next one. I still remember her joking that she might not get her lessons planned, but at least she had time for oatmeal.” For a second, he was back in that memory, but he quickly pulled himself out of it. “Anyway, the first thing Buckley said when I told her about the shooting was, I should have gotten up.”
I started to say that a child couldn’t possibly take the blame for something like that, then remembered Don telling me the same thing about the car accident that killed Owen. Buckley’s reaction to my reprimand for running late the morning of the bail hearing made more sense now. All I said was, “I’m sorry, Jack.”
“So, anyway, that’s why we’ve got all those files. I suppose if it comes to it, you could get Buckley’s therapist to explain—”
“Okay, that’s good. If it comes to that. I know it feels like I’m hammering you with negative information, but I have to ask you one more thing.” I told him that I had met with his civil lawyer, Gary Hannigan. “He says you made some remark when you found out about the dismissal? Something like karma needing to catch up with Neeley?”
“Did I? Maybe. Come on—they can’t possibly be saying that was some kind of a threat.”
“No one’s saying anything yet. But apparently one of the other plaintiffs was there, and that person’s not bound by attorney-client privilege. He or she could go to the police, or the prosecution could try to compel the testimony if they think to start questioning your co-plaintiffs.”
“When we found out about the dismissal, I was in Gary’s office with Jon Weilly. He was there at the bail hearing.”
Weilly told me he couldn’t recall Jack saying anything threatening about Neeley. I hadn’t pressed further, and hoped the police wouldn’t, either.
“Just please find Madeline,” he said. “If she backs me up about why I was there at the football field, maybe this can all go away.”
As I promised I would keep trying to find her, I couldn’t look him in the eye. There was no chance this would all go away.
Chapter 13
THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON, I was adding three witness names to the file, employees at the West Side Range who would testify that Jack had come to their establishment the previous month to research gun aficionados. During my visit to the range, I’d made sure there was no camera footage of Jack wearing something other than the shirt the police had tested for GSR.
Anything that couldn’t be disproved was good enough for reasonable doubt, in my book.
Not to mention, before my trip to the gun range, I’d made yet another phone call to the clerk at the surrogate court, who finally had some news. Max Neeley was about to get the family money without conditions. Only fifty hours after his father’s death, Max had a lawyer commence the probate process for Malcolm’s will. Malcolm had left two hundred thousand dollars to Princeton University, fifty thousand to the Stinson Academy, and the remainder of his estate to Max.
I had just finished writing my interview notes when Einer knocked on my office door and handed me a sheet of paper. “I found out what happened at Princeton.”
THE SHORT NEWSPAPER ARTICLE, PRINTED from the Daily Princetonian website, was dated May 2, 2010:
The Faculty-Student Committee on Discipline has decided not to discipline a senior whose roommate alleged that the student had made threatening comments that made him feel unsafe. According to the complaint, the offending student was screaming repeatedly one night about plans to kill his father while he was sleeping.
After hearing testimony from both students at an open hearing, the Committee announced that, while there was clear and persuasive evidence that the student’s conduct violated University housing regulations, discipline was unwarranted. Among the mitigating factors mentioned in the Committee’s decision were the student’s intoxicated state, the suicide of the student’s mother last fall, and the isolated nature of the incident. The complaining student told the Princetonian that he has no plans to pursue the matter further and only reported the incident “just in case something happened.”
Though the article didn’t use names, Einer had managed to convince someone in the office of student housing to “unofficially confirm” that the senior in question was Max Neeley. I pictured him standing over his father’s bed, a gun in his hand. Had he come up with a better plan in the years that had passed?
My direct line rang. I recognized the number as the outgoing one for the district attorney’s office.
Scott Temple didn’t bother stating his name. “I knew I should have handled the bail hearing myself.”
It was the first time we’d spoken since the surprise ruling by Judge Amador. “I’d like to take credit, but I think Amador was just rebelling against the shrillness of Amy Chandler’s voice. She needs to bring it down an octave.”
“I had a meeting with a domestic violence task force, or I would have been there personally. You’re making me regret helping battered women, Olivia. I think that officially makes you a bad person.”
“You’re a funny man, Scott Temple. And, frankly, I’m surprised you’re not more upset. Did Chandler tell you what the judge said at the end of the hearing? He basically told the press you guys overplayed your hand.”
“So you got one round of the media cycle on your side. You know how fickle the news is. Tomorrow, the wind will blow in the other direction. And don’t e
ver quote me on this, but a guy like Harris on house arrest isn’t going to make me lose sleep.”
“You’re accusing him of triple murder.”
“I am, but the one person he wanted dead is gone. If he hadn’t taken out two others as collateral damage, I might be worried about jury nullification. With Neeley gone, he’s not going to hurt anyone pending trial, and the bracelet is a pretty good guarantee he’ll show up when the time comes. Nice job, by the way, planting the idea for the gag order.”
I found myself smiling. I literally got in the last word at the bail hearing, right before Judge Amador issued the gag order. Now Temple wasn’t allowed to say anything in response.
“You got my discovery demand?”
“That’s why I’m calling. What’s up with all this surveillance video? The entire waterfront between Battery Park and Chelsea Piers for the day of the shooting and one month prior?”
“Correct.”
One of the great myths about criminal cases is that prosecutors have to give defense attorneys access to all their evidence. Don called it the nonexistent “law of Cousin Vinny.” In reality, prosecutors were generally allowed to keep the defense in the dark until we got closer to trial, but had to turn over “material, exculpatory evidence”—called Brady evidence. They could keep the stuff that hurt us as long as they turned over the big stuff that might help us.
Scott was clearly skeptical. “An entire month of video is Brady evidence?”
“Are you willing to bet it isn’t without seeing it?” Evidence that might look unremarkable to a prosecutor could be a gold mine to a defense attorney.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “And by the way, Chandler told me you made it sound like we were stonewalling you on this.”
The Ex Page 13