CHAPTER 44
SIDNEY SPENT THE DAY ON LONG ISLAND SHOOTING SCENES WITH Grace for the final episodes.
Grace had a few destinations in mind that she told Sidney she had dreamed about in Bordelais.
One of them was the Montauk Point Lighthouse at the far tip of Long Island.
Derrick shot footage of Grace climbing the tower and looking out across the water.
Sidney, watching Grace stand at the top of the lighthouse, propped on her tiptoes while holding the railing, and with the breeze splaying her sweater behind her like a cape, considered that the scene exemplified the very definition of freedom and might make for the perfect ending to episode ten.
In jeans and a tank top, her skin glowed with a subtle layer of perspiration by the time she entered the restaurant.
The air-conditioned interior gave her a chill when she walked in, quickly turning her skin to goose bumps.
She spotted Graham Cromwell across the bar and he raised his hand to wave.
He slid off the stool as she approached, and Sidney was surprised when he kissed her on the cheek.
An overtly private man, Graham had never shown any form of public affection during their brief relationship.
What might have transpired between them was a mystery, one that lately Sidney sensed Graham was interested in solving.
During times of pure honesty, Sidney admitted to herself that she wondered, too.
But there weren’t many success stories that started by sleeping with your boss, and as a fiercely independent woman, Sidney refused to give anyone a reason to call her success something it was not.
It had been more than a year now since the two had been intimate, and Sidney’s longings had finally faded like an old scar, just a faint splotch of pink remaining where once a wide wound had been.
Nowadays their relationship was such that they usually managed at least one lunch during the week, or coffee in the mornings.
Sometimes they met for drinks in the evening.
Work was always the topic, but it was nice to get away from the stuffiness of the office.
“Hi,” Graham said.
Sidney smiled. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Relax. I’m happy to see you outside the office.”
“Things have been crazy for the last week or so.”
“How’d it go?”
“Today? I don’t know. I got some good footage and sound bites from her. But her reunion last night? Probably the saddest thing I’ve ever seen,” Sidney said. “She’s almost forty years old and she has no one in her life.”
Graham sat back onto his stool. “But she’s out of jail, so you can hang your hat on that.”
Sidney took the stool next to him. “It’s so goddamn unfair.
She was a young girl on her way to a surgical residency and a promising career.
Then, in an effort to put a notch on his belt and settle a terrible crime, some tropical-beach ranger pinned a murder conviction around her neck and ruined her life. ”
“Sid, you’ve done this before. Without you, she’d still be sitting in jail. What’s worse? To be free and starting over, or to be incarcerated? Because those are the only two options.”
“She didn’t do it, Graham.”
“Which is why she’s free today.”
“How does she get the last ten years back?”
“She doesn’t.” Graham lifted his hand when the bartender passed by. “She’s going to need something. Quickly.”
“Casamigos on the rocks,” Sidney said.
“I thought you were a tequila drinker.”
“I am. It’s George Clooney’s brand.”
“George Clooney makes tequila?”
Sidney looked at Graham in the dim light of the tavern. “How old are you?”
The bartender delivered her drink. Sidney squeezed a lime over the top and took a sip.
“She doesn’t get the years back, Sid,” Graham said after a moment of silence. “But she gets the next ten years. And the ten after that. And it’s all because of your work.”
“You know the worst part? Her best friend, one of the only people who stayed in touch with her, is a successful doctor.”
“Why is that a bad thing? Isn’t her friend helping her out?”
“She is. But years ago, they went to medical school at the same time. Now Grace’s friend is set up in this crazy apartment at Windsor Tower.
She’s got a bustling private practice and her whole damn life set up pretty as can be.
The entire time I was with Grace the other night, I could see it in her eyes.
She was imagining her own life if things had not gone to hell. ”
“Why has this gotten you so wound up? You’ve done this three other times and it’s never bothered you like this.”
Sidney spun her drink as the ice formed beaded condensation that rolled down onto the mahogany bar.
“I don’t know. It’s just a travesty. You know my desk is filled with letters begging for help, each writer claiming to have been wrongly convicted?
I know they can’t all be correct, but how many of them are? ”
She stared at her tequila and thought of her trips to Baldwin State Prison.
“I don’t mean to be insensitive,” Graham said after a moment of silence.
“But who the hell cares? Currently you sure shouldn’t.
You’ve got the biggest story in the country sitting in your lap.
You’ve got the most-watched documentary in television history on your shoulders.
Twenty-two million people tuned in last Friday.
That’s bigger than The Jinx. Bigger than Making a Murderer.
And you’ve got three episodes left to produce.
That’s where your focus should be, not on a bunch of envelopes sitting on your desk from a bunch of deadbeats hoping to get lucky.
You’re not a crusader, Sid. You’re a filmmaker.
And you’re on a helluva run. Don’t get sidetracked with sentimentality.
You want to help all the wrongfully convicted?
Well,” Graham said, picking up his drink, “you can’t, because sadly there are too many for one person to tackle.
That’s what the Innocence Project is for, and all the other organizations that fight on behalf of the wrongly convicted.
You want to help someone else when you’re done with The Girl of Sugar Beach?
Good. The network wants that as well. You want the details now, or you want to be surprised when you come in tomorrow? ”
“I don’t really care about the next one, Graham.”
“I think you’ll change your mind when you see the details.”
Sidney shook her head. “I doubt it.”
Graham tipped his scotch back and emptied his glass.
“You want to mourn for Grace Sebold? Fine. She’ll never be a doctor like her friend.
That’s too bad. But she’s likely to get a truckload of money when she sues the St. Lucian government, so financially she’ll do just fine.
She won’t get those years back, but that’s why it’s a story.
That’s why it’s the biggest documentary we’ve ever seen.
So worry and fret all you want, but do it after you finish this documentary. ”
Sidney took a sip of Casamigos and stared into the mirror behind the bar, her image intermittently blocked by a score of liquor bottles.
“Spoken like a true suit,” she said.
“You’ll excuse my concern. I put my reputation on the line to get this project green-lit.”
“I’d say you’re doing pretty well on that bet.”
“And I want to make sure it pays off for both of us. Where are you with Friday’s episode?”
Sidney continued to stare into the mirror. “I’m meeting with Leslie early tomorrow to make the final cuts. I’ll have it to production by noon.”
Sidney took another sip of her drink and wondered how this casual meeting had gone to crap so quickly.
“You hungry?” Graham finally asked.
She shook her head.
“Christ, Sid. Please don’t steal defeat from the jaws of victory.
” Graham stood and dropped two twenties next to his empty scotch and walked out of the bar.
She watched him leave, following his image through the myriad liquor bottles in the mirror.
When he was gone, she finished her drink and ordered another.
She was halfway through her second tequila when a man took a seat on the stool next to her.
She looked down the bar at the several open spots where he could have chosen to sit.
Before Sidney could contemplate whether he was going to offer to buy her a drink or whether this guy simply had no appreciation for personal space, he turned to her.
“Are you Sidney Ryan?”
“Depends on who wants to know.”
“I do.”
“Do you have a name?”
“Jason.”
“What paper do you work for, Jason?”
“I’m not a reporter. I just need to give you this.” He pulled a white envelope from the back pocket of his jeans and slid it across the bar.
“Let me guess,” Sidney said. “A relative is in jail for a crime he didn’t commit.”
“Nope,” Jason said as he stood up. “But before you get too much further in your documentary, you better read that. Have a good night.”
It was the second time in ten minutes that a man had promptly walked away from her.
This time, Sidney turned from the bar to watch him exit through the front door and into the summer night.
When the stranger was gone, she twisted her stool back to the bar and looked at the envelope he had left.
She picked it up, slid her finger under the flap, and pulled out the single page.
She looked around the bar before she read it, as if some great secret might be revealed within.
It was written in a man’s abrupt penmanship.
Dear Ms. Ryan,
I believe you’ve made a great error with Grace Sebold. Please look up the name Henry Anderson, a boy who died in 1999. I believe you will find the circumstances of his death very interesting.
Sincerely,
Ret. Det. Gustavo Morelli
Sidney read the letter again. She looked around the bar to see if anyone was watching.
Conversations happened all around, and no one paid attention to her.
She brought her phone to life and typed Henry Anderson into the browser.
There were many Henrys in the world with the last name Anderson, so she refined her search with 1999 and boy killed.
An article came to the top of the browser: BOY’S DEATH IN TRAGIC MOUNTAIN FALL RULED ACCIDENTAL.
Sidney skimmed the article, her eyes stopping halfway through when she spotted the name.
Henry Anderson was a high-school senior when he fell to his death while hiking a mountain trail, apparently getting too close to the edge of a bluff and tragically falling.
The cause of death, determined by the medical examiner’s autopsy, was due to a head trauma from the fall—a large fracture in the back of Henry’s skull.
He was on vacation at the time of the accident with his girlfriend’s family.
The girlfriend’s name . . .
Grace Sebold.