After #4
Gretchen sat down on the bed, pulled up the text chain, and quickly typed out a response.
I paid you. This is over.
The reply was immediate. There’s something you need to know.
I don’t need to know anything more. We’re finished here.
We’re finished when I say we are. I’ll be in touch.
—
Mikey Pearce wore expensive jeans, a pricey-looking T-shirt, a hoodie, and designer slip-on sneakers.
Combined with his salt-and-pepper hair and heavy black eyeglasses, he looked this time more like a Tribeca movie producer than a lawyer.
Seated next to Scotty on Gretchen’s living room sofa, he also looked incongruous.
“No court today,” he’d offered by way of explanation when Gretchen had not-so-subtly eyeballed his outfit on arrival.
She did like Mikey Pearce, but she had a hard time with inscrutable people.
“So what’s this other evidence they have?” Cassandra asked, crossing her arms tightly.
Mikey Pearce nodded somberly. “Well, just to backtrack for a second, they have the eyewitness who supposedly puts your dad near the scene. We still don’t know any specifics, but unfortunately the prosecution seems pretty confident that witness will hold up at trial—and I’m inclined to believe them.
” He held up a finger. “As for the evidence they found here: They have a pair of your dad’s pants with Frankie Callahan’s blood type on them.
No DNA match yet. That will take at least another week. ”
“What pants?” Gretchen asked. This still made no sense whatsoever.
“We haven’t seen them,” Mikey Pearce said. “But apparently they found them in the garbage downstairs. In the basement.”
The children all turned to look at Gretchen, but when she opened her mouth to say something calm and sensible, nothing came out.
“But all the garbage in the whole building goes down the chute,” Cassandra said, stepping in to fill the void. “Those pants could belong to anyone.”
“Unfortunately,” Mikey went on, “it seems they were in a plastic bag with a Patisserie Vanessa receipt that had your mom’s name and credit card information.
The theory is that your dad removed them in your home, put them in the bag, then tossed them down the chute, not realizing the receipt was in there. ”
The rustling sound, followed by Richard going back out into the hallway. He could have been throwing something down the garbage chute. In fact, it made perfect sense. Gretchen felt sweat bead on her lip.
They were all silent then for a long time. No one made eye contact, and Gretchen sat stock-still, resisting the urge to wipe her damp palms on her pants.
“We’ve also gotten more details on the condition of the body,” Mikey Pearce said. “Apparently, the real issue is that there are no full fingerprints—not surprising given that Frankie was a painter working with chemicals. But again, it’s only a matter of time.”
“There is something else,” Scotty said. “That’s also not great.”
“Can you please—just out with all of it already?” Gretchen pleaded. “This is like death by a thousand cuts.”
“Richard sent Frankie Callahan a text the night she died,” Mikey said.
“They’ve probably gotten her phone open by now and have access to all her history, but that night in her apartment they saw the message from Richard as a preview on the lockscreen, which explains how they managed to connect him so quickly.
The text said, in essence, that he needed to see her and wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
It was sent shortly before she was killed—at least according to the timing of the argument a neighbor overheard, which the police are assuming correlates with her time of death.
But,” Mikey went on, “it’s important to remember what they don’t have. ”
“Like what?” Becks asked.
“Like that DNA match on the pants,” Mikey said. “Nearly forty percent of the population has O-positive blood, as I said at the arraignment, including you, Becks, and your mom. It’s hardly proof of anything.”
“But it wasn’t Mom or Becks bleeding all over Dad’s pants,” Elizabeth pressed. “We know that.”
“At trial, the standard is beyond a reasonable doubt,” Scotty said. “It doesn’t matter what happened. Only what could have.”
“Exactly,” Mikey added. “What we do know for sure is that Richard was home by two fifty-three a.m. We’ve got the time stamp from a video in the lobby.
And this witness supposedly saw him at nearly two-thirty a.m. near Frankie’s apartment—he couldn’t have left there, disposed of her body over in Battery Park, and still made it home to the Upper East Side all within twenty or even thirty minutes.
And in what vehicle? That will add strongly to reasonable doubt.
” Mikey paused. “Also, Richard shared one potentially useful lead.”
“Which is?” Gretchen was desperate for some good news.
“It seems Frankie Callahan was being harassed by her ex,” Mikey said.
“How did he know that?” Elizbeth asked. “Sounds pretty personal.”
“Frankie and your dad had been in touch regularly after the trip,” Scotty said. As if they all already knew this and it was no big thing. “They’d stayed close.”
Close. Hearing it out loud, in front of the children, was like a shotgun blast to the chest. Gretchen pressed her hands to her breastbone, half expecting to find a giant hole.
“Whoever was harassing Frankie is obviously also a potential suspect,” Mikey added.
“Well, who was it?” Cassandra asked, seeming unfazed by the revelation of this “closeness.” None of the children seemed the least bit shaken. Of course they weren’t. They trusted Richard. The way Gretchen always had, up until now.
“We don’t know yet,” Mikey said. “The police claim to be looking into it, trying to get access to her texts and all that. But obviously they aren’t motivated in the same way we are.
My investigators are on it, too, but without the subpoena power of the police, it will be slow going.
As we said before, Frankie’s only family is her mom, who’s in assisted living in Leadville, Colorado, and not mentally cogent.
We’ll need to be careful approaching her friends, who aren’t going to be eager to help the man accused of killing her.
It will be hard for the police to justify their lack of follow-up at trial, as it’s potentially exculpatory, but it’s been known to happen. We’ll stay on top of them.”
“Oh, and the financial subpoena came,” Scotty added.
“So just a reminder that now isn’t the time to move a bunch of money to an off-shore account.
” He laughed in a loud, awkward burst that was met by dead silence.
“My point is don’t do anything with money that you wouldn’t be willing to explain to prosecutors. ”
“But we’re allowed to use our money and credit cards and all of that, right?” Gretchen asked. “Nothing has been frozen?”
“No, not frozen,” Mikey said. “Just keep it to necessities. You’d be shocked what the D.A.s can try to make a story out of.”
Then it would have to be more jewelry, if it came to that.
“Can we visit him?” Becks asked.
Visit him. The thought hadn’t even occurred to Gretchen since this business with the watch. How was she ever going to be in the same room with Richard again? She was just so…heartbroken. God, how she longed for rage. It was a far sturdier shield.
“Yes, you can visit him,” Scotty said to Becks. “I think that’s a great idea. Maybe your mom should go first, though?” He glanced over at Gretchen. “Rikers can be pretty tough. You might want to vet it, Gretchen.”
“Yes, of course,” she said robotically.
“One note of caution: When you’re there, do not talk about anything significant,” Mikey said.
“Nothing at all related to the case. And try to arrange a contact visit because then at least you won’t be on the phone.
But even during a contact visit, you never know what people can overhear—and there’s no such thing as spousal privilege during jailhouse conversations.
Even if they can’t get your conversations admitted at trial, they can always make use of what you say in their investigation. ”
“I understand.” But Gretchen wasn’t making any promises. If she saw Richard, she had no idea what might fly out of her mouth. And maybe her husband would just have to live with the consequences.
—
She needed to lie down. That was all Gretchen could think once Scotty and Mikey Pearce were finally gone.
Collect her thoughts. Confirm those men hadn’t texted again.
Throw her phone out a window, so she’d never have to know if they had.
Find an escape tunnel leading to a world where none of this had happened.
Where Richard had made different choices. Where she had, too.
“I have something to tell you, Mom,” Becks called after her as she started up the steps.
“Okay,” she said, wishing she’d moved faster. She wanted to tell Becks to keep whatever it was to himself, but instead she came back downstairs and stood in front of her son. So tall now, a grown man. And yet all she could see was the child in his eyes.
He shifted his gaze to the ground. “I’m worried about hurting your feelings.”
“Oh, Becks, sweetheart.” She wrapped a hand around his muscular forearm. “You don’t need to worry about me. I’ll be fine, whatever it is. We need to be honest with each other.” Could hypocrisy make you feel lightheaded? “It’s the only way forward now.”
Becks shook his head—once, twice.
“I saw them together,” he said finally.
“Saw who together?”
“Frankie and Dad.”
Gretchen reached for the banister to support herself. “What do you mean, Becks?”
“The day before I left for school. On the Lower East Side,” he said. “Ludlow Coffee Supply.”
None of this made any sense. “You just happened to see them?”
“No, I, um— Dad was texting with someone and then he went to leave and he was acting…weird. And so, I guess, I followed him.”
“What do you mean, weird?” she asked.
Maybe Frankie Callahan had forced Richard to see her? This possibility hadn’t even occurred to Gretchen. A bright gap in the dark storm clouds.
“Excited or something,” Becks said. “I don’t know, it— He didn’t seem like himself.”
“Wait, when was this?”
“The day before I left for preseason,” he said. “The weekend after you got back from Atlanta.”
And just like that, the darkness folded in around her once more.
“Just coffee?” Her words felt thick, sticky. “That was all?”
“Just coffee,” Becks said. “They seemed to get into a fight or something at the end. She kind of stormed off.” His voice cracked.
“Shhh. Shhh,” Gretchen soothed. She moved closer and wrapped her arms around her son. “It’s okay,” she said. “Everything is okay.”
Okay. Gretchen was an addict frantic for a fix. Except the high she was chasing was hope.