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!”
CHAPTER 110
ONE 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.”
She pointed at him, and he staggered back, as though there were bullets in Norma’s fingers. “May God, no, may Maggie Bradford and her poor children forgive you. I sure as hell can’t. You’ve disgraced yourself, and your already disgraceful profession. You’ve nearly helped convict an innocent woman. My God, Nathan. I hope they put you in jail for a hundred years. Will you do that, Judge Sussman?”
I sat very still, tightly gripping the armrest of my chair. My cheeks were hot, and waves of light-headedness came and went.
Hold on, I kept saying to myself. Be calm now. This is really happening. This isn’t a dream. You aren’t back in your prison cell. You’re right here. This is real.
Then suddenly I was in Norma’s and Barry’s arms. I was shaking like crazy. We were all crying. Norma must have read my mind. “It’s really happening, Maggie,” she said. “We were still talking with the attorney general late last night, or we could have let you know.”
We embraced for a long time. I can’t begin to describe how it was with me, but I’ve never experienced anything close to the relief I felt that day. I was completely out of it, euphoric, but I knew what had just happened. I knew. I knew.
“Obviously I’ll have to declare a mistrial,” Sussman said to Nizhinski, his voice cutting into my consciousness, “but you may want to retry. Nothing here obviates the fact that Will Shepherd was killed and the detectives say Mrs. Bradford has admitted shooting him. We’ll have to give her time to hire a new lawyer and prepare her defense. She might even want to change her strategy. Can you tell me what you plan to do?”
Nizhinski was actually speechless for several seconds.
“This is all—well, it’s a shock,” he finally managed to say. “I don’t know what I’ll decide. I need some time to regroup, Your Honor.”
“When you do, call me,” Sussman said.
Barry spoke to the judge. “I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know the right legal words, but do you think Mrs. Bradford could be allowed to go home?”
Sussman turned and looked at me. “She is released on her own recognizance,” he said.
CHAPTER 111
LIKE THE YOGI Berra saying—it was déja vù all over again. But it had to be done this way. This was our justice system, in all its glory.
Months had passed. The second trial was about to begin, and if anything, it would probably be more dishear
tening than the first. The State still believed that I was guilty of murder, and because they insisted on trying me again, so did a lot of people.
I continued to wear the scarlet M. I felt as though great chunks of my life were being chiseled out of me. Probably, because they were. And I was hurt.
I arrived at the courtroom with Jennie, Barry, and Norma. Barry and Norma were an odd couple now, but sweet and wonderful to watch. Amazingly, they weren’t too grumpy around each other.
Once we were inside the courtroom, I walked on steady legs to a familiar seat at the defense table. My new lawyer was Jason Wade, from Boston. He was an expert in murder defenses, very no-nonsense, and I liked him. Most important of all, he wasn’t Nathan Bailford, who was now a permanent fixture in my bad dreams.
Weird, weird, so very weird.
“Maggie looks so great!” I heard one of the spectators say. Maggie! As if we were old best friends.
“You do. You look fantastic,” Jennie whispered against my ear. It was like old times between us, only better. Jennie was one of those rare people you could stay up with all night, just talking. I had—only the night before. Even Allie had stayed up with us past ten. JAM was back together again.
The trial took eleven weeks. Our tax money at work! The same people gave much of the same testimony, though the cross-examination had a different slant, headed in a different direction.
The courtroom became increasingly hot as the summer wore on, but I didn’t mind the heat, didn’t mind the repetitiousness of the questioning, didn’t even mind the notoriety and the consant sleaze of the press.
I wanted to be found innocent. But more than anything, I wanted to be freed from the purgatory I had lived in for so long.
I wasn’t guilty. I was sure of that.
I was innocent.
I would have given everything I had just to hear those words uttered once.
CHAPTER 112
I LEANED FORWARD to hear each and every word inside the jam-packed courtroom. Suddenly, I couldn’t force enough air into my lungs. I felt as though a dry cloth were blocking my throat. Claustrophobia was striking again.
The faces in the courtroom were becoming blurry and ill-defined. Blood pounded in my brain like small hammers. The back of my neck was sopping wet.
The twelve jury members were slowly filing into the right side of the room.
Again.
They had reached a verdict.
Again.
I could not get my breath as the folded piece of paper was handed to Judge Sussman. He read the verdict to himself, then passed it back to the jury foreman. The procedure was necessary, I suppose, but cruel.
“Publish the verdict,” Judge Sussman instructed.
“We love you, Mom,” Jennie, sitting behind me, whispered. Norma slid her arm around my shoulder. Barry stroked my hair from the row of seats behind. My family, my friends, I couldn’t leave them again, but that was a distinct possibility now. That morning, USA Today had the odds of acquittal at even. People were actually betting on the outcome in Vegas and London.
My mouth seemed to be filled with cotton. I was numb all over. I was sitting in that courtroom, and yet somehow I wasn’t there at all.
The foreman began to speak. His voice was high-pitched, and yet surprisingly distant, as though there were a screen between him and the rest of the courtroom. There wasn’t another sound.
“We find the defendant, Maggie Bradford, not guilty.”
Not guilty.
Not guilty.
I had to close my eyes. I felt so tired and weak, and strangely, not completely relieved for some reason. I was only vaguely aware of cheers in the courtroom. People were congratulating me—Jason Wade and Norma, Jennie and Barry. Faces loomed before me like enormous balloons. The sound was as blurred as the images. Everything seemed incredibly odd and queer.
“Oh, Maggie, you did it! You won!”
How could this simple moment be so confusing to me? I was rushed from the tumultuous courtroom, enfolded in a safe cocoon of lawyers and friends and my precious family. Surrounding us were the press and fans. Faces were pushing microphones at me, screaming questions, begging for an autograph, even now.
Jason Wade would have to deal with them. My lawyer could answer their questions. Sign their autographs too.
I was actually pushed, like someone on wheels, through the cavernous foyer, then much too fast down the steps of the courthouse, and into a waiting car. Not a limo, just a regular car. I had insisted on that.
I jumped at what sounded like a gunshot. Pain pierced my heart. The automobile door had slammed shut!
Then the “regular” car started to slowly move through the press of people who had been waiting outside for a glimpse of me, win or lose. The car floated behind an escort of police cruisers, sirens crying, revolving red roof lights casting shadows on the faces of the onlookers.
I remembered the MP car in West Point. Its light was revolving too, only there were no onlookers, and it was so cold. I remembered so many scenes leading up to this moment.
I watched out the car window. People forming the tremendous crowd clogging Broadway and Clarke Street seemed to be clapping and cheering, shouting out my name. I couldn’t relate to any of it.
I held Jennie and Allie tightly, never wanting to let go of them. They held me back. We were JAM again: Jennie, Allie, Maggie.
“I love you so much, Mom,” Jennie whispered and kissed me on the cheek. “You’re my heroine in shining armor.”
“And you’re mine,” I told her.
“Mommy,” Allie said, and hugged my side. “My mommy.”
“Allie.” I kissed the top of his head. “My Allie and my Jennie.”
CHAPTER 113
“MAGGIE! MAGGIE BRADFORD!” the crowd of idiots shouted at her car.
The murderer clapped and cheered too, pretending delight at the scene. He was concealed in the crowd choking the Bedford Village crossroads. Well concealed.
The murderer watched as Maggie’s car passed by, then finally disappeared around a street corner.
Then the murderer disappeared as well.
BOOK SIX
Hide & Seek—Again
CHAPTER 114
FIFTH AVENUE. EASTERTIME. New York City. Delightful! Absolutely the place to be, no?
The world’s most beautiful women were on parade. Primping, prancing, shopping their little hearts out.
And every one of them eminently fuckable, Will thought. Every one could be mine for the wooing. Some things never change. They just get better and better.
He strolled among them, in no particular hurry, early for his appointment. He was dressed in khaki slacks and blue blazer. His dyed-black hair was cut short and meticulously combed.
The Black Arrow, he thought and smiled thinly.
Some of the women definitely looked at him—as well they might, he thought. He hadn’t lost much as far as appearances went. If anything, he looked even better nowadays. Dark and mysterious, right? Just the way so many women liked their fantasy lovers.
At Fifty-ninth Street, he turned east toward Park, then north to Sixty-second Street, where he disappeared into a yellowish-brown Deco building on the corner. He bought mints at the lobby’s newspaper store, and checked his appearance in the mirror.
Carefully cut dyed-black beard, blue eyes (the contact lenses were a good touch; an excellent touch), perfect tie from Liberty of London, the natty blazer. Just the right look for today’s important meeting.
Then Will took the elevator to the twelfth floor and found the office he was looking for: Marshall and Marshall, Attorneys.
He pushed open the dark oak door. Immediately, he was treated to a wall of windows and a view of the teeming avenue below. Impressive and overstated, in the American way.
The company’s receptionist was Irish-American from her look, a smiling, auburn-haired, alabaster girl, blooming nicely in her mid-twenties. She was first class, expensive. Like the firm that employed her. Nice decorative touch, Wil
l thought.
He casually rested the Mark Cross folio on her desk.
“Good afternoon, sir. May I help you?” she asked. She was more than pleasant, he noticed. Not offended by his folio invading her space. Or maybe, like a good Irish person, she just didn’t show it.
Will smiled, low-key but seductive, his charm intact. “I’m here to see Mr. Arthur Marshall. It’s about an inheritance. He’s expecting me, I believe.”
“Yes, sir.” The girl tried not to stare at the very good-looking Englishman standing before her. “Whom should I say is calling?”
“Palmer Shepherd,” said Will.
CHAPTER 115
I LOOKED AROUND the warm, familiar living room of our house and I couldn’t help beaming, almost giggling out loud. Hooo boy!
This was the best. This was the most important thing now. The party!
A dozen of Allie’s boy and girl friends from kindergarten had come to the house for his fifth birthday. No one had declined, and that meant a lot to me, and more important, of course, to Allie.
It was a strictly old-fashioned party, which Jennie and I had meticulously planned. Games and silly hats, a birthday cake for the birthday boy, a present for every child, and lots of presents for Allie the Wonder Boy.
It was going perfectly. Barry and Norma had stopped by to help. So far, we’d had tons of laughter and fun, one minor collision, not a single tear had been shed.
Allie finally came up to me. He beckoned for me to come down to his level, his size, his turf.
I knelt so that we were face to face. As he almost always did, Allie twirled my hair around his fingers.
“Know what?” he said, and his eyes had the most wonderful twinkle. “Well, do you?”
“What? You tell me. The cake is too big for you to eat all by yourself? Okay then, share it with your friends.”
Allie laughed. He got all my jokes. I got his too.
“No, I just want to tell you the very best thing, Mommy. The very best thing is that you’re here.”