Chapter 22
Eddie
Traffic in Manhattan is never as bad as you think it might be.
That’s not to say that it’s good. It’s often quicker to walk if you’re foolish enough to go out in rush hour.
This was a Thursday, coming up on six, but I was still able to make good progress.
A lot of people who worked in the city were still taking two days to work from home.
Thursdays and Fridays were much better now than they used to be.
‘You look amazing. Have a great time and be safe,’ I said.
She was touching up her lipstick in the side mirror. I don’t know how it happened, but it seemed to me that very suddenly my kid was becoming a young woman. She wore a navy dress, navy shoes, a pink denim jacket and had her hair tied up.
‘Don’t drink any alcohol, and no drugs,’ said Harry, from the back seat.
‘I’ll bear that in mind, Harry,’ she said.
‘I’ll text you later and make sure you’re okay,’ I said.
‘Dad, I have my cell. Don’t text me. I’ll be fine. If I need you, I’ll call. I promise. See you at midnight,’ she said.
I pulled in outside the hotel. She got out and ran to a group of young girls who had just gotten out of a Humvee and were standing on the sidewalk.
I buzzed my window down to give a final warning of no alcohol, and I heard the excited high-pitched screaming that passed for a greeting.
They were headed for one of their first big parties.
That’s the thing about your daughter turning sixteen.
Most of her friends were also turning that age too, and there seemed to be a full roster of parties planned. Only a few in the city, though.
I watched her get lost in the crowd. Harry got out of the back of the Mustang, pulled the seat back and sat in the front.
‘She’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘Let’s go get this over with.’
I sighed, pulled out into the traffic and headed over ten blocks to see our client in a different hotel.
The suite that Vanessa occupied had a living area, a double bedroom and a separate dining area. I didn’t get a look at the bathroom, but I guessed it was probably half the size of my whole apartment. It would cost more for one night in this hotel than I paid for my first car.
We set up in the dining area, the prosecution discovery spread out on the table. First, we let her read, then gauged her reaction. There was some surprise, sure, especially at the statement from Geoff Gilbert.
‘He’s lying, you know?’ she said.
‘Okay, so you were never jealous of Molly?’ asked Harry.
‘No, and we never fought. We never had any harsh words . . . For God’s sake, I barely even spoke to her. She was just someone who worked for Patrick – to me, anyway. He’s worried about his job. If Patrick’s campaign gets blown up by this case, he’s out of work. They’re all protecting him.’
I’d decided we had gotten so far down this road wearing our kid gloves. Time to put on thirty-three ounces and start fighting.
‘You’re still lying to us, and that has to stop,’ I said.
She was about to speak, but whatever words were about to be spoken froze on her lips when Harry opened his laptop, swiveled it round so the screen pointed at Vanessa and hit play on the security footage.
She watched in silence. Dispassionate. Cool.
The footage ended.
She leaned back in her chair, stared at us.
Didn’t say a goddamn word.
I laid it out for her.
‘The DA is going to show this video to the jury. He’s going to remind them that you told the police that you’d never been to Molly’s apartment.
You lied about this. He’s going to make the case that you either knew, or suspected, that Patrick was sleeping with Molly.
That you waited until he left her apartment, then you went inside.
And when you left an hour or so later, you had her head in that gym bag. ’
Her reply came fast.
‘When I left, she was alive.’
Harry and I looked at each other.
‘What was in the gym bag?’ I asked.
‘Patrick’s change of clothes, spare toothbrush, change of underwear, socks and spare shoes. I told Molly she had to stop seeing him. She agreed.’
‘You lied to us. You lied to the police. You told them there was no affair. You told them you had barely spoken to Molly. You told them you’d never been to the apartment. If you didn’t kill her, then why all of these lies?’ I asked.
Her head fell forward and she stared at her shoes. Her back, which had been straight before, hunched in a perfect arch. It was like watching somebody take off a disguise.
She looked at each of us in turn, but didn’t speak.
‘Don’t tell us you were trying to protect your husband’s political career,’ said Harry. ‘We’ve seen how he is with you. Other than a very misguided sense of loyalty, there’s no reason to protect him.’
‘I wasn’t trying to protect him,’ she said, finally. ‘I was trying to protect her.’
‘Molly?’ asked Harry.
She nodded.
‘Why should we believe any of this?’ I asked.
Vanessa rolled up her sleeves and displayed her arms.
‘Jesus,’ said Harry.
‘At first, he used his hands,’ said Vanessa.
She spoke softly, but there was power and sorrow in every word.
‘It didn’t take long for things to get worse.
We were married a year when . . . It was our first anniversary .
. . He thought I wasn’t appreciative enough of the jewelry, and the dinner, and the ballet.
That’s when he started to burn me. The first time it was a cigar, but it got worse.
He would heat spoons on the stove or with a kitchen blowtorch.
He laughed when the hot metal touched my skin.
I remember that. I don’t think I will ever forget it.
He said burns were a reminder – to avoid weakness. ’
She fell silent. The sunlight from the window sparked in a tear that ran over her cheek as she rolled down her sleeves.
She said, ‘He’s careful. He won’t hurt me where someone could easily see. It didn’t start this way. It took time.’
It doesn’t matter if you live paycheck to paycheck, or if you’re staying in a hotel room that costs two grand a night, the feeling of powerlessness, of vulnerability, that sensation of being trapped in a nightmare, feels just the same for everyone.
I wanted to help her.
She sat down again, her face flushed hot with embarrassment.
It takes a lot to confess that you are a victim.
‘The night she was murdered, tell us what happened,’ said Harry.
‘I confronted her about Patrick. She denied it at first, but I told her I knew. I guess she felt guilty. I saw his gym bag in the corner of the living room. I said I was taking his stuff. That she had to stop seeing him. That she had to call the office in the morning and tell Geoff that she’d quit and she wouldn’t be back.
And that was it. I took his bag, and I left. ’
‘How did your DNA and Molly’s blood get onto that jewelry box?’ I asked.
There it was. The DA’s case, laid out for Vanessa’s response.
If we couldn’t find a reasonable and rational explanation for this, the jury would again revert to the simplest explanation – that the blood was on the jewelry box because they fought with it, and only one of them is still alive.
That’s a three-minute deliberation and a guilty verdict at the end of it.
‘I have no idea how my DNA got onto that jewelry box. I’ve never seen it before in my life.’
That wasn’t a reasonable explanation, but right then, that didn’t trouble me much. It was the way Vanessa gave her response. She’d clenched her hands, leaned forward, stared me straight in the eyes and spoke clearly and cleanly – like she was trying to persuade me.
Clients who tell the truth don’t have to persuade their lawyers of anything. They give their responses honestly and without affectation. I hadn’t spotted Vanessa’s tells yet, not all of them at least. But this . . . this was concerning.
I was pretty sure she was lying about the jewelry box.
Did that make her a killer?
For me, maybe not. For a jury?
No doubt.
And I wasn’t doing her any favors by holding back.
‘Vanessa, if the DA presents this evidence in court, and you say that you’ve never seen that jewelry box before, you will be convicted.’
‘I can’t help that. I’m telling you the truth.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ I said.
‘Maybe, in time, you will.’
‘The security footage of you leaving Molly’s home shows you carrying a gym bag. Where is that bag now?’
‘I left it at home. It had Patrick’s things in it. I checked for it the other day, searched the house, he must’ve thrown it out.’
‘He must’ve seen you’d brought the gym bag home from Molly’s apartment. Did he mention it to you?’ I asked.
‘He didn’t need to. He must’ve known I was there at the apartment. What’s he going to say? Thanks for bringing my things home from my mistress’s apartment?’
Harry and I looked at each other.
‘Why are you still with Patrick?’ asked Harry. ‘You could’ve left him. I know it’s not easy, but lots of women find the courage to walk away.’
‘I stayed because there’s nowhere else on this planet I could go to be free of him.
He has power like you wouldn’t believe. My life would be hell wherever I went.
I know I can never be free of him. Not unless he decides to divorce me.
Maybe then he might let me go. Or maybe my head just ends up missing. ’
‘You think Patrick had Molly killed?’ I asked.
‘I don’t think so – I know.’
‘How do you know?’ asked Harry.
‘Because the night you came to my house, the night I left, before you got there, I was about to go upstairs to get away from him and he stopped me, told me he had something to tell me. He said we shouldn’t have secrets.
He told me he loved Molly. And he loved me, but there had been an accident.
He hit her, and killed her. He didn’t mean to do it.
He said he came back later and tried to hide the evidence by .
. . you know . . . Jesus, I need your help.
I didn’t do this. You have to believe me. ’