43. Cass
CASS
A uniformed policewoman comes in maybe fifteen minutes after Detective Kramer leaves.
It’s been long enough that I’ve moved through several stages of grief, all of them ugly, all of them painful.
She tells me to stand up. Her eyes are kind but her mouth is not.
She unhooks me from the table and re-cuffs my hands in front of me, which is, in the world of being-handcuffed, apparently the equivalent of being moved up to first class.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“Booking.”
“Right. And then?”
“Honey, just keep thinking about putting one foot in front of the other. It’ll be easier that way, trust me.”
She walks me down a hallway. I keep my chin up. I don’t know why. There’s no one here to put on a face for. But four years of training are hard to shake.
In booking, a man takes my mugshot. “Look at the line. Now to your left. Now to your right.” Click-click, boom—just like that, I’m in the system.
A second officer rolls each of my fingers in turn across a glass scanner.
The pads of my fingers are still dark with whatever they put on me for the GSR swab, and I notice that the scanner has trouble with the right index, the trigger finger, so much so that he has to do it twice.
I watch the screen flash green on the second try and feel something turn over inside me, a slow, awful flop, like a fish on a dock.
After fingerprints, there’s a clipboard. After the clipboard, there’s another clipboard. After the second clipboard, there’s a third, and by then, I’ve signed Cassandra Snyder so many times that the scrawl has started to look unfamiliar to me.
My body kinda feels unfamiliar to me, too. I don’t feel funny anymore. Humor has gotten me through a lot of horrible things in this life, but when I need it most, it’s failing me.
The world just looks dull and gray.
So, I imagine, do I.
Then I’m shepherded once more through a metal door that locks behind me, down another hallway, and into a small room with a desk and a folding chair. In there waits a woman in scrubs and a cardigan. Her name tag says PHILLIPS, RN .
“Sit,” she orders without looking up. “We’re gonna do a quick health intake. Won’t take long if you don’t lie to me.”
I sit. My cuffs clink against the chair leg.
“Allergies?”
“Penicillin.”
“Current medications?”
“Um… None.”
“Last menstrual period?” When I hesitate, she glances up at me. “Well?”
“I’m… I’m actually pregnant,” I say.
If she cares, she shows no sign of it. “How far along?”
“Um. Eight—” I do the math in my head, badly. “Eight weeks? Almost nine. I think.”
“Prenatal care established?”
“Yes.”
“With whom.”
“Dr. Todd. Upper East Side. I— I can’t remember the address.”
“That’s fine. We can pull it.” She scribbles some more things down. “Any complications? Spotting, cramping, hyperemesis?”
“What’s hyper?—”
“Throwing up enough that you can’t keep food down.”
“No. I mean, some nausea. Not— not bad. Yet.”
“Mm. Any history of miscarriage?”
“No.”
“Domestic violence in the home?”
Again, I hesitate, and again, her pen hovers.
I look at the wall behind her as I whisper, “Yes.”
She still shows no sign of recognizing that I’m a human being with thoughts and feelings, not simply fodder for her clipboard form. I don’t know whether to be grateful for that or to weep and fall to pieces.
“Last thing.” She flips the form. “You’re at risk of being placed in general population during your stay here. Do you want me to flag your file for medical—pregnancy precautions, separate housing if available, dietary accommodations?”
I can only nod meekly. “Please.”
She makes one more checkmark, signs the bottom of the form, tears off a copy, and slides it across to me. I can’t pick it up because of the cuffs, so it just sits there.
“You’re done, sweetheart.” She caps her pen. “Officer’ll take you from here.” It’s only as the door is opening behind me that she adds, almost as an afterthought, “Eat the breakfast. I know it looks like shit, but eat it anyway.”
I nod again. I can’t say anything. The lump in my throat has gotten big enough that swallowing is a project.
The officer takes me down another hallway and into another room.
I’m given a paper bag with my breakfast in it: an apple, a carton of orange juice with a foil top, and a packaged English muffin with a butter pat that looks vaguely sentient.
I eat all of it sitting on a bench, even though the English muffin is quite possibly the worst thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.
After breakfast, there’s holding, which is a long bench in a big room with a few other women, none of whom bother to look at me. There is a stainless-steel toilet bolted to the floor with no door around it, and even though I have to pee, I stay far away from it.
Even though I try to keep them reined in, my thoughts continue to find ways to squirm out of my control. When they do, they beeline to the same topic over and over again.
Matvei.
What the fuck, Mat? Where are you?
I know it’s not right, it can’t be, but my brain keeps conjuring up images of him out there living his best life. Mat in a Bentley. Mat eating a Michelin-star meal. Mat on a private jet with Brittany the Buxom Bridesmaid giggling at his side.
Then it comes up with worst-case scenarios. Mat in the next cell over. Mat dead in a ditch. Even though those make my stomach lurch worse than the English muffin did, at least they’re somewhat satisfactory. They’re an answer, if nothing else, to explain why he isn’t here.
But he’s not dead; I know that. Detective Kramer said bond was wired in without a moment’s hesitation, and that Mat walked out the side door before sunrise. Dead men don’t walk out side doors.
So where is he?
And why has he left me here?
I rub my thumb over the spot where my wedding ring used to be. The skin there is paler than the rest, a little dent worn into the flesh. Mat tossed that stupid jewelry under the settee a week ago and told me the man who put it there didn’t own a single cell of me.
Then he left me to wake up next to that man’s corpse and didn’t come back.
So who’s the real villain?
“Snyder!” a voice calls out. “You’re up. Arraignment.”
I stand up. My legs hold. It’s a small triumph, but at this point, I’ll take anything I can get.
The courtroom is not at all like the ones on TV. It’s smaller and dingier, with a drop ceiling and multiple panels stained brown. The judge sits behind a flimsy-looking desk, and behind him, an American flag and a New York State flag each droop from their respective poles.
I’m led to a wooden lectern in the well of the room. A woman in a wrinkled blazer is already standing at the lectern next to mine, scrolling through a tablet.
The ADA, my brain supplies, in a voice that sounds suspiciously like Raymond. That’s the prosecutor. Pay attention. She controls your life right now.
I am told that a public defender has been assigned to me for this appearance, since I have not yet retained counsel of my own. The defender in question comes jogging up. He is a thin, harried man with a tie that doesn’t match his suit and a thumbprint of cream cheese on his lapel.
He whispers, “Snyder? You’re Cassandra Snyder?”
I nod.
He says, “Okay, okay, okay,” and starts shuffling through a folder.
I scan the gallery while he shuffles. There are maybe twenty rows of pew-like benches, and they are mostly empty. Except for…
Dani?!
Dani is here. Dani is here . Dani came.
How? How does she even know? The news, probably. Raymond Snyder, prominent attorney, dead in Park Slope, wife in custody —it would have hit by sunrise, and Dani has had Google alerts on my name since I started dating Raymond, because she’s been waiting four years to find me in a headline like this.
And yet she came, dammit. She came . The first face I’ve seen that loves me back, in—what?—twelve hours? Sixteen? It feels like a lifetime.
She must’ve ran out of her apartment in a hurry, because I can see the cuff of a flannel pajama top poking out of the sleeve of her peacoat. Her hair is in a sloppy top knot, under-eyes still lined with sleep.
The minute our gazes meet, she smiles.
Although maybe calling it a smile is not totally accurate. It’s pinched in with sadness, because she knows it’s the worst day of my life and she can’t do a damn thing about it. But she’s here, isn’t she? That’s more than Matvei has done.
I almost collapse to my knees.
The public defender mutters, “Mrs. Snyder, eyes forward, please,” and I drag my attention back to the bench.
The judge is a thin woman with a graying bob.
She doesn’t bother to look up as my charges are read aloud, or as the ADA, in a brisk monotone, walks her through the file.
“… One count, murder in the second degree… Defendant found at the scene. Gunshot residue on the defendant’s hand.
Prints on the weapon… Months of incriminating searches on the defendant’s personal device.
A co-defendant—Matvei Satyrin, Esquire—already released on bond and being investigated separately… ”
When it’s his turn, my public defender clears his throat and reads from his folder in a voice that suggests he first learned of my existence three minutes ago and is highly dubious of my likelihood of beating these charges.
“Your Honor, the defendant has no criminal history. She is a lifelong resident of New York. She has community ties. She is not a flight risk. We’d ask for bail to be set at a reasonable amount, given those facts?—”
“Counsel,” the judge interrupts, without looking up, “is your client aware that her co-defendant has already posted bond and is not, as we speak, sitting where she is sitting?”
The public defender glances at me sideways. “Yes, Your Honor.”
“And is your client aware that the People consider this a coordinated act, and that her co-defendant is, at this moment, free?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Mhmm.” She makes another scratch with her pen. “People? Thoughts?”
The ADA in the blazer steps forward. “Your Honor,” she says crisply, “the People oppose bail. This is a homicide of a prominent member of the bar in his own bed. The defendant is a woman of substantial private means. Her co-defendant has demonstrated the ability to move significant funds in a matter of hours. We have grave concerns that, if released, the defendant will flee the jurisdiction with assistance from her co-defendant and parties affiliated with him.” She pauses before adding, “Parties whose affiliations the People are still investigating, but which appear to be… considerable.”
The judge peers over her eyeglasses. “Considerable how, Counselor?”
“Your Honor, I’d prefer to discuss specifics at a later hearing, but suffice to say that the speed and ease with which the co-defendant’s bond was posted is consistent with organized criminal infrastructure.
The People view the defendant, if released, as both a flight risk and a continuing danger to potential witnesses. ”
It takes everything I have not to laugh out loud. Me? A continuing danger? I had four years to kill my husband and I couldn’t even do it! The only thing I’m a danger to is myself. My own miserable, pathetic, cowardly, easily manipulated self.
I look down at my own hands and the residue still smudged under the nails, like living, gritty proof that I can’t even kill a monster correctly.
The public defender starts to protest. “Your Honor, my client?—”
“—is to be held without bail,” the judge announces.
Her gaze sweeps me once, top to bottom, and then away.
Once it’s gone, it doesn’t come back. “Next appearance on the calendar in three weeks. Mrs. Snyder, you’ll be remanded to Rose M.
Singer Detention Center until then. Counsel will be in touch about preliminary motions. Next case.”
A gavel tap.
That’s it.
It’s over.
The public defender mutters to me, “Sorry. We’ll appeal. We can… Well. We’ll see what we…” He doesn’t finish the thought before he’s shuffling around in place and flipping over to the next file in his stack.
The ADA clicks her tablet closed with a satisfied little snap. A bailiff puts a hand on my elbow and starts to guide me to another set of doors.
I twist my neck. Dani is on her feet, both her hands clapped over her mouth. Her eyes are spilling over and she is mouthing something at me that I cannot quite read. I’m here, maybe. Or I love you. Or I’m sorry.
All of them. Or none of them. Doesn’t change much either way. Besides, the bailiff is turning me before I can be sure.
Even though I know it’s a useless exercise, I still can’t stop myself from scanning the pews one last time as the bailiff spins me away. I find exactly what I expected to find: nothing.
No Matvei.
No dark coat in a back row.
No blue eyes burning at me from a corner.
No tall, still figure leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets, watching, waiting, ready, here.
The courtroom doors swing shut behind me, and the last thing I see before they fully close is Dani—my Dani, my Danny Banany, the only person in this whole rotten city who has ever loved me without an ulterior motive—sinking back down into the pew, alone in a row with room for two.