Jack was poking a straw into his iced tea. But Martha could tell he was listening.
“After our interview, I engineered a way for her to be with Rafferty alone. And she intimated to Rafferty that he was in my sights.”
Jack held up both hands, making a time-out signal. “Wait. How do you know if you weren’t there?”
“We had that apartment wired, with hidden cameras and mics. It’s one of our safe houses. We own it in a trust. And your wife? She essentially threatened Rafferty, suggested we suspected him, and then offered to give him inside information on the progress of the murder investigation. Offered to protect him. He’s moved up to Maine now, joined some law firm. But he’ll come back to testify if we need him to. Want to see that video, though? Happy to show you.”
“Bull. You got video of nothing.” Jack sat up straighter. “Maybe Rachel was trying to help you. Maybe she was doing her job.”
“Good try, Jack. But there’s more. Logan Concannon knew all about Ms. North’s crush on Rafferty. Annabella Rigalosa, too. Your Rachel is the one who tried to convince her to think it was Logan who’d been having the affair. By the way, she ruined Logan’s life with that lie. Logan sacrificed her career to protect her boss from an ugly inquiry. Rachel was not as noble. And then there’s Clea Rourke’s jury video.”
“Clea Rourke? Knows about this?”
Martha nodded. “Yeah. And I know about you and her.”
“From her?”
Martha ducked her head, acknowledging. “You’re not her favorite.”
“She threatened me, once, when I … well, never mind. But she made good on her threat, that’s the damn truth of it. She’s ruined my life. And it was that video that did it.”
“Reporters,” Martha said.
“Yeah.”
Martha waited. Both of their sandwiches were untouched, the edges of the thin-sliced rye beginning to curl.
Jack moved his plate aside, leaned across the table. “Did you disappear my slasher witness? In the Marcus Dorn case?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Martha said.
“Rachel thinks you’re railroading Jeffrey Baltrim. ‘Pizza guy’ she calls him.”
“Lizann Wallace has his case. She knows the ropes.” She lifted her glass. “May the better lawyer win.”
“And you clearly screwed me on the Deacon Davis trial. The jurors. That was cheap.”
“I wouldn’t use that word, so much, as I took advantage of a reality. Jack? Don’t we all do that? And you had ethical problems of your own there, if I remember. I heard through the—shall we say, grapevine—that you tried to talk your client out of testifying.”
She shook her head, as if considering a tragedy. “Sadly, your client will never know how you failed to stand up for him in those hearings.”
There was nothing he could say, and they both knew it.
“What do we do about Momo Peretz and Roni Wollaskay?” Jack rattled his ice cubes, staring into his glass. “And the fact that Deacon Davis was killed after the judge knew Roni Wollaskay was sniffing around?”
Martha took a deep breath and looked into the far distance, as if seeing the future.
“We’ll tell them it all turned out to be on the up-and-up. That everything is fine. That there was nothing improper about them being excused from the jury, and it was all fair. And that Deacon Davis’s death was a coincidence. Which I promise you, it was. They’ll buy it. That’s how they want to believe the system works. I’m not a murderer. Which is more than I can say for your wife.”
“I’m going to represent Rachel myself,” Jack said. “If it comes to that. Look. It was winter. Let’s see—coat, hat, scarf, gloves. And you plan to rely on eyewitness ID from someone a couple of stories up in an apartment building? Nina Rafferty perjured herself at her arraignment. She’s a liar. Who’s to say she’s telling the truth now?”
Martha blinked. Waited for him to realize that defending Rachel was a poor decision.
He kept silent.
“You love her, don’t you, Jack?” She reached across the table, put her hand on the arm of his suit jacket, left it for a fraction of a second. “That must be impossible.”
“What am I supposed to do, Martha?” He looked at her, steely-eyed. “Abandon her?”
Now it was her turn to be silent. How would she feel, she wondered, if she had to choose between love and the law? Between love and justice? She’d never faced that.
“You’re a good lawyer, Jack. Although I’ll deny I said that. And the evidence against her is—well, between us, it’s—well, never mind.” She picked up her linen napkin, smoothed it on the table, folded it, then folded it again. She paused, one beat, two, and then went on.
“But if you get Rachel acquitted, how is that different than helping someone get away with murder?”
“It’s not—”
“And Jack? I know you love her. And I’m sorry. But say you get her off—then what are you going to do?”
EPILOGUE
RACHEL NORTH
So it’s fine. Totally fine. Jack will get me acquitted.
Issue, rule, analysis, conclusion.
The issue is murder. And now I know the rules. I turn to my cell’s cinder-block wall. Ignore the metal bars to my right. Ignore my paper flip-flops. My turn now. I’ll take over this case.
And then the faces appear. Emerge from the cinder block, as I will them to, one by one. The jury, my jury now, faces me. There’s Roni. And Momo, wrenny Delia Tibbalt and Larry the scientist and even Patriots guy Gil. I stand so tall, lift my chin so high, I’m a ballerina. A virtuoso. A maestro. Every eye is on me. As it should be. I smooth back my hair, adjust my orange jumpsuit, and, standing with elegant Martha-like posture, I open my arms, entreating.
“Call CJ Malinoff,” I say. CJ, the crime-scene tech. The one who’d also processed Tassie Lyle’s house. He appears, sitting on the witness stand. His eyes are on me, too.
“You tested the victim, Ms. Zander, for foreign DNA?”
He nods. “Yes.”
“Was there any that matched Rachel North?” I ask.
“No, ma’am,” he says.
Never ask a question you don’t know the answer to—I’d learned that my first year of law school. I knew there was no DNA—I’d been careful. It was winter. Hats, gloves, mufflers, boots.
Next witness. Ervin, the goggle-eyed statehouse security chief. He shuffles to the stand.
“Was there surveillance video of the parking lot?” I ask him. “Back then?”
“No, miss,” he says, adjusting his glasses. “It’d been broken for weeks. In fact, Senator Rafferty had written a letter to our office about it. We didn’t have the money to fix it.”
Another answer I already knew. Senators don’t write their own dear-colleague letters. I’d composed that one from Tom myself.
The medical examiner appears, wearing his white lab coat and his stethoscope, as I’d requested, to give him credibility. My jury will believe him.
“What was the time, of death, Dr. Ong?” I ask him.
“Difficult to estimate,” he says. “Ms. Zander was covered with snow.”
I knew that, too. And thanks to the hot oven in the pizza-guy case, I knew intense or unusual temperature complicated the TOD determination.
And eyewitnesses? Ha. There were no witnesses. Not that had any credibility. I lick my lips. The dank gray walls are shimmering now, waiting to see who I need.
“Call Nina Rafferty,” I say. She appears from the cinder block, ephemeral, looking pallid and fragile and terrified. And so very very old. Poor thing.
“Mrs. Rafferty.” I try to sound respectful. She cannot meet my eyes, even now. “Is it not true that you told this very court”—I gesture toward the judge and jury as I’ve seen Jack do—“that you were out of town the weekend of the murder? And now, Mrs. Rafferty, you’re telling us that’s not true?”
Nina has no answer, of course, because she’s a lying perjuring shrew.
�
�Why should anyone believe you now?” I’m so good at this. “And isn’t it possible you’re now covering up for your own crime?”
“Objection!” Martha Gardiner leaps to her feet at the prosecution table, and I see her stumble in her snooty heels. She’s old, too.
“Overruled,” the judge declares.
I hear the audience buzz with disdain for her. And approval for me.
“Do you know the penalty for perjury, Mrs. Rafferty?” I push even harder. She deserves it.
The jury gasps. The judge bangs her gavel. Jack looks at me, so proud. Martha scowls. We are winning. I am winning.
And now. My final witness. Even my own eyes widen as she insinuates herself through the cinder-block door. All attitude, nose in the air, and an unnecessary swing in her too-wide hips. This is my life at stake, and she’s hogging the spotlight. As always. I hope she’s finally afraid of me.
“Miss Zander,” I say, infinitely polite. She looks at me under those eyelashes. “Isn’t it true that I only asked you to take a walk?”
“After you saw the necklace,” she begins. It’s around her neck, even now, the tiny stars catching the light. Magnifying them. She touches one, as if it were lucky. But no. She doesn’t get any more luck. “You were my boss, remember? I had to do what you told me.”
Damn right. “And what do you remember, Miss Zander, about what you said to me?”
“It was snowing,” she says. “I probably said I was cold.”
“Isn’t it true…” I put my nose in the air exactly as she did. I can match her, tactic for tactic. Disdain for disdain. “Isn’t it true that you revealed your sordid affair with the senator? Isn’t it true that you told me, in so many words, that you were trying to convince him to leave his wife? For you?”
“And isn’t it true,” she sneers back at me, scornful, like in the parking lot, “That you lost it? Lost it? And pushed me against the dumpster? What did I ever do to you?”
“Do? To me?” My voice gets louder, like it isn’t even mine, my astonishment crashing against the low ceiling and shattering to the concrete floor. “You—”
“You were never good enough, Rachel, not for anything. Not ever. And certainly—” Dani looks at me, I see it, with pity. Pity! “And certainly not enough for him.”
“I never pushed you,” I had to say it. Make it true. “You fell. If you hadn’t been pushing me and pushing me and pushing me, it never would have happened. It’s all your fault. Yours!”
I say it again. Louder, and louder. “Yours! Yours!”
“Shut up!” A voice, shouting, echoes from down the hall.
I’m not sure what happened—but her face fades, like a predatory Cheshire cat, then vanishes. I’m left alone again. No more Danielle. Not ever. Not ever.
I erase her, purge her ruinous venom. The jury has watched her, listened to her, and they hate her, too. I can tell.
I draw a breath in the dank and airless silence. As if the universe is waiting for me.
Collecting myself, separating myself, my fingertips tingle and my ears ring and the buzz of the lights gets so loud, then even louder, and then there’s only stillness. Complete and perfect silence.
And then, in my closing argument, I tell the waiting cinder-block jury my truth.
“It was her fault,” I say, my voice confident and assured. “You heard it, did you not? You heard that woman’s thieving manipulative behavior. Trying to steal Tom from me. Trying to ruin my life. He’d lied. Lied! He’d given her that necklace. Her. He’s a liar. She’s a thief. She stole my life. They both did. But I only—truly—I only meant to warn her. She fell. She did. She fell.”
I pause, my jurors nodding in sympathetic agreement. Gil, and Delia, and Roni.
“Reasonable doubt, ladies and gentlemen,” I remind them. “But here, you can have no doubt at all. You can only come to one conclusion. The right thing happened. Justice. And isn’t that why we’re all here?”
Momo puts her hands together in prayer, beaming her approval. I smile at her, my soul mate.
Then, closing my eyes in gratitude, and hearing the sound of my own heartbeat, I bask in my courtroom victory. The jury vanishes, poof, then reappears. They are smiling. At me. Every one of them.
“Not guilty,” the judge pronounces. “You are free to go.”
“Thank you,” I say. “Thank you all.”
I turn to Clea Rourke, who’s holding her microphone toward me, eager for my response. “Why didn’t you help her?” Clea asks. “How were you sure she was dead? You simply—left her? Didn’t even call for help?”
She’s gotten fat, and her lips are even fatter. I don’t need to answer her repulsive questions. The verdict is final.
“I’m an innocent woman,” I tell her, “and the jury agrees. Now I plan to devote my life to helping other unfairly accused people get the justice they deserve. It’s my destiny.”
I smile, victorious, as I watch her struggle to decide how to respond to my eloquence. Then I seize the opportunity to take control.
“And Clea?” I feel my expression change. My smile vanishes. “Stay the fuck away from my husband.”
“Shut up!” The strident voice yells at me again, the order racketing down the cell-block corridor. “Stop yelling! You’re freaking nuts!”
Enraged, I whirl to confront whoever is tormenting me now—but see only bars and darkness and gloom and nothing.
I plop down on the thin ticking-stripe mattress, one dingy layer of simulated comfort placed on the metal bed-bench bolted to the wall. Plant my feet on the concrete.
“I am not nuts,” I whisper. “They can’t prove anything. Not. One. Thing.”
So why can’t Jack get them to set bail? He promised he’s doing his best. I know he’ll deal with Martha, conniving, manipulative loser Martha. These things take time.
I look through the double-thick window, the mesh wire, thick, unbreakable glass. Through this almost-opaque opening, it’s always gray outside, no matter what the weather. Sunny day or snowstorm, all the same. I’ve been here since June and now it’s November. And the snow will come again.
Like the day Dani wore the damn necklace.
I touch my neck, remembering how it felt for those three perfect days.
When that woman came in wearing it? My necklace? I can remember it, so clearly, it almost makes my head explode. She’d come in flaunting that thing, and when I’d asked her where she got it, she lied. Lied! And said it was a gift from her father. Her father’s dead. Did she think I hadn’t checked her files?
I’ll give you a gift, I’d thought.
“Let’s take a walk in the snow,” I’d said. I stand in my cell again, acting out the moment. “I know it’s crazy,” I’d told Dani, “but it’s so beautiful. There are lovely places around the statehouse I’d adore to show you,” I’d said. “Let’s play a little girlfriend hooky—it’s Sunday after all.”
And she—stupid girl—had gone along with it. She was right about one thing. I was her boss. How could she say no?
I only meant to talk to her. Tell her what’s what. Put her in her place. I’d even thought about firing her. I had the power, didn’t I? All of what happened was her fault. Not mine.
I’d considered taking the necklace, after. It would have taken one tiny second. One brief touch. I could have done it. And no one could have known, of course, because no one knew she had it. Only Tom. And he would not have mentioned it.
I laugh out loud at that, laugh and laugh, my bitterness clattering on the gray walls and escaping through the bars.
“What’s so damn funny?” The guard’s voice again. “You want me to come shut you up? You want it?”
It’s fine. It’s fine. I can stand it. Until Jack rescues me.
And I can even do some good.
We’re all women here, and many of us, like me, have been accused of crimes we did not commit. Or that they can’t prove. Or where the victim deserved it. That should be a defense, right there.
And the perfect t
hing is that now I can do what I always wanted to do.
These poor women, so devalued and so misunderstood. I’m almost a lawyer now. I can help them. I can advise them. They’re without friends or support or money, the ones who only killed a cheating boyfriend or a manipulative spouse, or who had a bad day because the world isn’t fair. But we women need to support each other, like Martha says. Help each other. That’s why I’m so valuable.
It’s like I’m their personal attorney. Their special attorney. After all, I learned from the best. I know all the secrets.
I’m the only one on their murder list.
I win.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Unending gratitude to:
Kristin Sevick, my brilliant, hilarious, and gracious editor. You are endlessly wise, and infinitely patient, and thank you for the fabulous ideas. The remarkable team at Forge Books: the incomparable Linda Quinton, the indefatigable Alexis Saarela, and copy editor Kate Davis, who saved me at least twice from career-ending errors. And thank you, Daniela Medina, what a cool and sinister cover! Bess Cozby and Lili Feinberg, you’re the best. Brian Heller, my constant champion. The inspirational Tom Doherty. And my dear darling Laura Pennock. Eileen Lawrence and Lucille Rettino—you are life-changing. What a terrifically smart and unfailingly supportive team. I am so thrilled to be part of it. Thank you.
Lisa Gallagher, my stellar and incredible agent. You changed my life and continue to do so every day. I am so honored to work with you.
Dana Isaacson, you astonish me. Your editing skill—and care and commitment and friendship—shines on every page.
The artistry and savvy of Madeira James, Mary-Liz Murray, Nina Zagorscak, Charlie Anctil, Mary Zanor, and Nicolette Roger.
Sue Grafton, always. Mary Higgins Clark, ditto. Mary Kubica, Lynne Constantine, B. A. Paris, Lisa Unger. Erin Mitchell. Sasha Quinton. Barbara Peters, Joanne Sinchuk, and Robin Agnew.
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