Hide and Seek (28 page)
“No further questions,” Dan Nizhinski said and walked away from Jennie.
The courtroom erupted all around us. It took minutes before the banging of Judge Sussman’s gavel caught anyone’s attention.
Jennie was led from the witness box. She was crying. I reached my arms out to her, but I couldn’t touch her.
“It’s all right, Mom,” she said. “Nobody can hurt us. Nobody can hurt us anymore.”
I only wished that were true.
N
ORMA BREEN CHEWED on Rolaids, tasty, orange-flavored ones, as she sat in court and listened to the closing arguments. She had a secret, an absolute mindblower, and she had to bite her tongue to keep from blurting it out.
Maybe we can throw out this bullshit trial
, Norma thought as she sat in the back row of spectators.
Or maybe, despite all the evidence, Maggie will be acquitted. Maybe the jury will see that she had to kill—and let her off on a technicality. Or at least give her the lightest sentence permissible under the law, the least punitive verdict. And maybe Mel Gibson will call me for a date while I’m sitting here on my oversized rump. You never know, right?
Norma had decided that her best strategy was to wait for the verdict. And now, as she listened to Nathan Bailford’s rebuttal, a spark of hope glimmered in her heart.
This is a good woman. Spare her. It’s only right. Do the right thing, huh
.
In his redirect, Nathan had interpreted the facts so succinctly that Norma was left feeling that Maggie was the victim, Will the killer.
Still, the defense lawyer couldn’t
change
the fact that Will was dead, Maggie alive. And he couldn’t solve the other important question—if Maggie hadn’t, then who
had
killed Will?
The prosecutor got up and immediately dismissed Nathan’s case as a smokescreen. Murder was murder. That’s what it was; there was no other name for it. Murder with a single motive: revenge. And because Maggie had picked up the gun, brought it knowingly into her daughter’s room, it was
premeditated
murder, and deserved the maximum penalty: a life sentence.
Yet with it all
, Norma considered,
something is terribly wrong about this trial
.
She was still uncomfortable. It was the gut feeling she’d had from the very start.
Maggie did not kill Will Shepherd
. She was convinced of that.
Will had committed suicide, hadn’t he? According to Maggie, and even Palmer, he’d been threatening to do it for years. This was his final, terrible revenge against Maggie
.
Maybe if they had put Maggie on the stand, a reason would have emerged. Norma had reluctantly agreed with Barry and Nathan that such a strategy was a mistake. Maggie could only verify her statement to the police—that she didn’t know for sure what happened, that she
might
have killed him—but it was a close call, and now Norma was second-guessing everything about the defense effort.
Everything.
Ah well, it was too late for second guessing. Nathan Bailford finished his closing statement and wearily sat down.
The forty-six-day drama was finally over.
It was next to impossible to read the jurors’ faces.
Yet Norma could guess: Maggie Bradford was going to be convicted of murder.
And then, she thought to herself,
the real fireworks can begin.
“
N
EVER IN DOUBT. It wasn’t even close, sports fans. To the victors! To us!”
Dan Nizhinski sat back in his chair, took a big sip of pilsner, and beamed at his three associates.
“To the victors!” the group chanted.
“What was it?” he asked, as if he didn’t know the answer, “the all-time record for fastest verdict in a major murder case?”
“Not to suck-ass too much, but you did a great job, Dan,” Moira Lowenstein, his youngest associate, said. “You got the jury to waive their emotions and look hard at what actually happened. No mean feat. You got them to realize that if they let her go, they subverted the whole system of justice.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you all,” Nizhinski said, insincerely, leaving them with the impression he could have succeeded just as well with anyone else.
“What’s next for you, boss?” Bob Stevens, Nizhinski’s closest associate, helped himself to his fourth beer in less than an hour.
Nizhinski grinned. He was still performing, couldn’t turn it off. “To tell you the truth, I haven’t made up my mind. The exposure during the trial won’t hurt. I have to admit that, I guess.”
“And the state could use some cleaning up,” Moira added. Peter Eisenstadt, the third associate—the quiet one—glared at her.
Yeah, and guess who wants to go to Albany on your shirttails, boss?
“I’ll decide in due course,” Nizhinski said. They all knew he would run for something big. “For now, let’s enjoy the moment.” He raised his beer can. “To a great victory.”
“To victory,” his colleagues echoed, and they all drank, laughed, congratulated one another.
Then the phone rang.
Dan Nizhinski picked it up himself. “Nizhinski.”
“Kahn,” the caller said. “Barry Kahn.” Something in his voice chilled the prosecutor. “Norma Breen and I are coming right over to your office. She’s discovered something that might interest you.”
G
UILTY.
Guilty.
The word rang in my head like a religious chant. No, it was more like a dirge.
Guilty. I’ll go mad in prison. I’m already half-mad.
Norma and Barry came to see me as soon as I was transported back here from court today. They were full of smiles and secrets. Don’t worry, they told me. They would start appeal proceedings immediately in a higher court. Everything was going to be all right.
How could it be? A life in jail isn’t “all right.”
Trust me on that.
I know there are appeals, and that my fate won’t be decided for months, probably years. Still, the chances for reversal are small, no matter what anybody says. My chances are terrifyingly bad.
So why was Norma hopeful and cheerful? Why did Barry press me so hard to remember exactly what happened the night I shot Will when I’ve gone over it, and gone over it?
Simple answer: They wanted to try and take my mind off what had just happened.
Guilty.
The Scarlet
M
still emblazoned on my chest.
I guess I never really expected this. I’d hoped that in the end I would go free. It just didn’t happen that way.
Guilty.
T
HAT NIGHT IN my cell, I stayed up until two, maybe three in the morning. I lay with my eyes closed, trying futilely to recapture lost images of my life on the outside. Allie. Jennie. Concerts I’d had. Finally, exhaustion overcame frustration. I fell asleep.
I didn’t dream. It was as though I had fallen away into nothingness. The long, long fall from grace continues. A bottomless pit.
I awakened to a shock.
A gray parade of police officials was standing outside the cell, led by Warden Serra herself.
I glanced at my clock.
It was quarter past six in the morning.
I didn’t get it, didn’t understand.
I blinked, blinked, blinked.
Warden Serra and the others were still there.
Why were they here? What had happened?
Was I going to be moved to another prison?
Was I actually awake, seeing what I thought I saw?
I doubted it. This wouldn’t be the first time I’d confused a dream and reality in here.
Warden Serra?
All these other people?
“Aren’t you a little early?” I finally asked. My eyes were slowly adjusting to the harsh light of the corridor.
“Please get dressed, Mrs. Bradford,” Maureen Serra said. “We’ve received a call from the courthouse. Something’s come up. You’re wanted in Judge Sussman’s chambers immediately.”
I
FELT COLD and was shaking all over as three guards led me through the empty courthouse. I didn’t understand what could be happening. Neither did anyone from the prison.
What was going on now? What could this be?
There were four people in the judge’s chambers when I arrived. Judge Sussman sat behind a large mahogany desk. To his right sat Nathan Bailford, looking somber, but successful, as always.
Barry, sitting forward on a leather couch on the left side of the room, winked at me, but he didn’t smile.
Only Norma Breen, dressed in a green tweed skirt and bulky brown sweater and sitting next to Barry on the couch, seemed relaxed. “Hi, Maggie,” she said; she was the only one to actually speak to me.
“Hello, Norma. Everybody,” I whispered. It all seemed surreal, as though I were dreaming. What in God’s name was happening now?
There was an empty chair next to Sussman’s, and he motioned toward it. In a daze, I did as I was told.
Sitting, I could look at the faces of the others—the same view that Judge Sussman had, as though I had gone from defendant to part of the judicial team. I liked that a lot.
Papers were shuffled. Briefcases snapped open. Coffee container lids removed.
The briefcases, the papers, the store-bought coffee reminded me that these people were different from me, that they led different lives from outside a prison.
Still, no one spoke to me, not even Nathan Bailford.
They were waiting for someone to arrive. Dan Nizhinski? Somebody else? Who?
I wished that someone would tell me why I was here, then maybe I could stop quivering. My mind was racing badly.
“Mrs. Bradford,” Judge Sussman finally spoke to me. “Ms. Breen has discovered some remarkable information,” he announced. “We’re only waiting for the district attorney—ah, here he is. Dan, welcome.”
Nizhinski strode into the room like a matador into a bullring, stance erect, expression fierce, afraid of no one. I thought of Norma’s line on Nizhinski:
a putz of the first order
, she called him.
He looked straight at Nathan Bailford. “What’s this meeting about? If you think you can get the verdict overturned because of some technicality—”
“It’s hardly a technicality,” Judge Sussman interrupted the prosecutor. “Tell him your story, Ms. Breen. Please, have a seat, Dan. I think you’ll need one in a minute.”
Norma rose slowly. She glanced at me, then directly at Dan Nizhinski, who had stopped pacing and was watching her warily, not quite the same confident matador he had been a moment ago.
When Norma spoke, it was in an assured and commanding voice. This was her time in the spotlight.
“During the trial, Maggie, you may remember Mr. Nizhinski took testimony from Peter O’Malley. He spoke about ‘private parties’ late in the night at the Lake Club, where, I believe, you have been a dinner guest from time to time. You had dinner at the club proper, of course.”
I nodded, still having no idea where Norma was heading. “It’s kind of where I met Will, actually. I couldn’t join if I wanted to. There are no women members.”
“I’m sorry,” Nizhinski spoke up impatiently. “What does any of this have to do with Mrs. Bradford’s trial? She shot her husband. The jury’s said so. It’s over, Ms. Breen.”
“It has everything to do with it,” Norma said. “The new evidence—
who
attended private stag parties at the club, and who their guests were—suggests that
lots
of people might have had a motive to harm Will Shepherd. We have evidence that Mr. Shepherd was very
indiscreet
about the existence of these parties, as he was indiscreet about much of his life. There could even have been a nasty cover-up during the trial, shielding members, hiding a motive any of them could have for killing Will Shepherd.”
“Then that evidence should have been presented at the trial. It’s too late now. The verdict’s been rendered.” Nizhinski was as cocksure as ever.
I could see the tension in everyone. My own throat was dry. My stomach was a clenched fist. Only Norma seemed calm. Now turned prosecutor herself, she was relentless.
“It’s my opinion—and I should add that it’s also the opinion of the attorney general of the state of New York—that Maggie Bradford may have been the victim of an elaborate and very vicious cover-up. A cover-up known to, indeed perhaps instigated by, the Bedford chief of police.”
“I
object
to this!” Dan Nizhinski shouted.
“Let her finish,” Judge Sussman said. He seemed to be enjoying this almost as much as Norma was.
“Important people, leaders of industry, banking, and the media have been protected from police investigation—possibly from prosecution on criminal charges here in Bedford,” Norma went on.
She exchanged a glance with the district attorney. “Please don’t look quite so ill yet, Mr. Nizhinski.
It gets much worse.”
She was a performer now, a star. No audience has ever listened more intently.
“You’re right, Mr. Nizhinski. All this would have nothing to do with the trial of Maggie Bradford except for one important thing:
Maggie’s defense counsel
, the man who knew what I’m telling you, and should have acted upon it in Mrs. Bradford’s defense, couldn’t possibly have done so.
“Because the defense counsel himself is a member of the secret club.
Nathan Bailford is a member!”
O
NE LOOK AT Nathan’s twisted, ashen face and I understood that Norma was right. The look alone was proof of his guilt. My attorney—my
friend
—was up on his feet. He was spluttering with outrage, but I saw the lies behind his words; I saw the humiliation in his eyes, the betrayal, the selfishness and evil of what he had done.
“Judge Sussman,” Nathan said. “These are the most salacious lies, drug-induced dreams or fantasies I’ve ever heard. I can’t believe we’re here listening to this.”
“No, they’re
not lies
,” Norma shot back at him. “I have witnesses. The groundskeeper at the Lake Club, and two of the porters. I also have a sworn statement from
a member of the club within a club.
One of your pals.”