A Good Marriage

by Kimberly McCreight

  The same was true of Amanda having a stalker. I could raise it now and hope the suggestion of an alternate suspect might curry favor with Judge Yu, but it wasn’t actually relevant to bail. The prosecution had gotten their murder indictment, and so that train had left the station. I needed to focus on the narrow issue at hand.

  “Your Honor, can we return to the issue of bail?” I pressed. And now, a frontal assault on Wendy Wallace. It was all I had left. “The decision to remand my client was an erroneous one based on prosecutorial misconduct.”

  “Misconduct?” Wendy Wallace laughed icily, but didn’t seem remotely rattled. “That’s absurd.”

  “The prosecution deliberately introduced photos of a murder scene, which were not relevant to the issue of bail on an unrelated charge. That initial erroneous bail determination should not be allowed to remain in effect simply because the prosecution has now amended its charges.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Paul nod. I had done a solid job laying out our argument.

  Judge Yu took an annoyed breath, then paged again through the brief in front of her, which she was already clearly very familiar with. “The prosecution’s tactics in this case certainly leave much to be desired. It’s clear to me that Mr. Grayson should not have been held initially. I also have grave concerns about the circumstances that led to his arrest.” Judge Yu shot another look at Wendy Wallace. “However, I cannot prevent the State from lawfully amending the indictment now. So here’s what we’re going to do. Let’s start again, right now, in my courtroom. I will hear arguments on bail. The charge is murder in the first degree.”

  This was Judge Yu being generous, giving me a chance.

  “Your Honor, my client has a young son, a business, deep ties to this community,” I reiterated. “He has no criminal record and there is no evidence indicating he ever contemplated flight. There is absolutely no legitimate reason Zach Grayson should not be granted reasonable bail.”

  That was my best argument: principled, clean, straightforward. Unfortunately, it was still a loser.

  “And what’s ‘reasonable bail’ in the case of a multimillionaire like your client?” Wendy Wallace asked. “What dollar figure would he not be willing to walk away from? Your Honor, Zach Grayson’s son isn’t even living with him at the moment. He’s already off in California, shipped conveniently out of state so that Mr. Grayson can retrieve him and be easily on his way to some distant foreign locale. Two weeks ago, Mr. Grayson even asked his assistant to look into flights to Brazil.”

  Brazil? What the fuck, Zach?

  “Your Honor,” I interjected. “Obviously, Mr. Grayson would happily surrender his passport. Further, the Graysons’ son, Case, was already at a long-planned summer camp well before his mother died. He wasn’t ‘sent’ to California after the fact. And with regard to international plane tickets, Mr. Grayson often travels for work.”

  “Yes, about that work. Mr. Grayson probably has enough money to pay for a private jet and an excellent fake passport. He certainly has good reason to, given that he’ll be facing a life sentence for murdering his wife,” Wendy Wallace said. Her justifiable confidence was terrible. “He has the means to flee, and, resolved or not, that outstanding warrant tells us one thing about Zach Grayson: he believes he’s above the law.”

  Judge Yu was quiet for a moment, considering. “Ms. Wallace, I do not approve of your end run around due process in this case.” She held up a hand when Wendy Wallace leaned in to protest. “But the access to the funds and the son already out of the area are problematic.”

  “Your Honor, if my client’s son was brought back to New York, it’s not clear who he would even stay with. My client and his wife only recently moved to the area. He shouldn’t be penalized for wanting what’s best for his son. And right now that means staying with family friends in California.”

  Foster care. That would be the likely upshot if Case was brought back. It might even be the upshot if Zach was convicted—unless Ashe’s parents were willing to make taking care of Case a more permanent solution.

  “I understand. But it presents an issue, and not the only one,” Judge Yu said. She nodded then, her mind made up. She turned to the court reporter. “Please note for the record that the defendant must be given credit for all time served before and after the amending of the indictment. The defendant, Zach Grayson, will continue to be held over without bail.”

  And with that, Judge Yu struck her gavel down, rose to her feet, and swept back into chambers.

  “That was never going to go any other way,” Paul said as we watched Judge Yu disappear. “You did well with what you had.”

  Wendy sauntered over, leaned her fingertips down against our table, then thrust her face into Paul’s. Her eyes were ablaze. Paul did an impressive job of staying perfectly still. Didn’t even blink.

  “Fuck. You. Paul.”

  “Nice to see you, too, Wendy.”

  And with that, she turned on a sharp lizard heel and click-clacked down the aisle and out of the courtroom.

  “She’s been sleeping with that ADA Lewis for months,” Paul said, his jaw muscle flexing. “Guy’s a prick. He’s also like twenty-five years younger, and reports to her. Anyway, I’m sure they were in bed together when she got a call letting her know they had something press-worthy. She definitely told Lewis to go down and see if it would be a good case to insert herself into. Wendy’s always been that way: strategic, even in who she’s screwing.” He finally rose from the table. “Anyway, she knows that I told you about her boyfriend.”

  “So now what?” I asked as I shoved my papers back into my bag. This was a rhetorical question.

  “I’ll tell you this much: Wendy is one hell of a storyteller. It’s her trademark. Her case will be light on facts, but it’ll be flashy, and it’ll flow, and the jury will be riveted. You’ll need a story of your own, and it had better be a goddamn good one.”

  I nodded. “You get what you wanted out of being here?”

  Paul frowned. “She’ll probably end up calling me,” he said. “The more important question is whether I’ll answer.”

  “Will you?” I asked.

  Paul smirked. “What do you think?”

  I walked a few blocks out of the bustling chaos surrounding Brooklyn Criminal Court to the quiet tree-lined area surrounding the more regal Kings County Supreme Court. I sat down on a bench to the side, out of the worst of the harried lunchtime foot traffic. Despite the already hot July sun, it was surprisingly cool in the shade.

  Prepare for trial. That was the obvious next step. And, aggravating or not, Paul was right: if we had a hope of prevailing, we’d need a far more compelling story. The prosecution’s version—a distant marriage, a controlling husband, a sex party that ended in violence—was a narrative a jury would be able to sink its teeth into. I’d need a similarly appealing one to grab their attention back. Better yet would be an alternate suspect that the jury could punish. Amanda’s stalker was my best candidate, if I could find out who he was. Somebody from Amanda’s troubled past seemed like the strongest possibility—her dad, Christopher, maybe even Carolyn. To know for sure, I needed to finish the rest of Amanda’s final journal, and pray that she identified him, or her, there.

  My phone rang. I was expecting Sam, hoping for Millie, though it was too soon for anything definitive from the lab. “Vic,” my caller ID read instead. I was about to send the call to voice mail when it struck me that maybe what I really needed at that moment was a friend.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hi!” Victoria exclaimed, taking my call off speakerphone. “I can’t believe I got you! How’s big-firm life?”

  “Strange,” I said without hesitation. It was the most honest thing I’d said in weeks.

  “Strange?” Vic had made partner at one of the biggest entertainment law firms in L.A. in a mere six years, slipping into that elusive groove between big-firm stability and interesting work. “I guess that’s better than some other alternatives like, say, excruciat
ing.”

  I’d told Vic months ago that I was leaving the US attorney’s office because I needed money to pay for IVF or adoption. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her the truth. As close as Vic and I were, Sam’s drinking was my dirty secret.

  “Hey, do you remember Zach Grayson?” I asked.

  “Ah.” She made a sound like she was trying to think. “No. Should I?”

  “I was friends with him first year at Penn.”

  “Oh, wait, you mean shifty eyes?” she asked. “That guy was a weirdo.”

  “Yeah, that’s him,” I said. “His wife is dead, the police think he beat her to death with a golf club.”

  “Yikes,” Vic said. Then she was quiet, but only for a moment. “I feel like he probably did it. Don’t you?”

  I laughed too hard. I couldn’t help it. The way she said it was so absurdly matter-of-fact. “I’m representing him,” I said when I’d pulled myself together.

  “What?” Vic sounded genuinely alarmed. “Why?”

  “It’s a long story. I kind of got cornered into it thanks to you and your obsessive need to send updates to our alumni magazine,” I said. “He knew I’d moved to Young & Crane.”

  “Oh, no, no,” she said. “I’m not taking the fall for this. I stopped sending in those updates two years ago, after Amy had her first miscarriage. She’d told me it was okay to post about her being pregnant, thank God. But still.”

  “Well, somebody must have posted it, because he called me at the office.” Somebody probably delighted that I’d been forced off my high-minded path. I’d been pretty sanctimonious about public interest law back in the day—even though plenty of reasonable people didn’t consider prosecutors public interest lawyers. “I felt bad saying no.”

  “You felt bad?” she asked. “What if he killed her? Is this because you dumped him? Because, my God, that was so long—”

  “Dumped him? What are you talking about?”

  “Come on,” Victoria drawled. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. You were so in denial about the whole situation until I asked you what it was like to have sex with Zach and you freaked out. It was a totally genuine question, by the way. I’d assumed you two were having sex.”

  And then there it was—me and Vic studying for finals one night in Philly so many years ago. Vic had so casually asked me about sex with Zach and I’d been so childishly appalled. Sex, with Zach? We were friends. Only friends.

  But by the time I was walking to meet Zach for dinner that same night—as we did several nights a week—I’d accepted that Victoria’s question was a warning, one that I would ignore at my peril. As soon as I arrived at the restaurant and saw Zach, smiling so eagerly at me from a table in the corner, there was no more denying it: Zach thought we were dating, or on the verge of it. God, how stupid I had been. I did like Zach. I enjoyed his company. But I didn’t want to feel his warm breath against my bare neck, did not want to curl up naked against him. I had never once—not for even one split second—pictured our bodies entwined.

  And so, that night in the restaurant, I’d chosen the path of least resistance, one suggested by Victoria: an imaginary boyfriend. Richard, I’d named him. I’d thought it would be so easy, mention the boyfriend and Zach would beat a hasty retreat. But instead, he’d dug in his heels. Zach had suggested—plainly, but very seriously—that I ditch the new guy. In the end, I had no choice but to get to the point. The real point.

  “I don’t have romantic feelings for you.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Zach had laughed, like it was a joke. Except his laugh had been too loud and sharp. And when I looked up from my menu, he was smiling too hard. “Lizzie, relax, I’m joking. I’m happy for you.”

  He wasn’t. I’d known it then. But I’d decided to believe Zach. Because I’d wanted to.

  I startled when someone touched my shoulder.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Maude Lagueux gasped when I whipped around. She was standing behind me, a hand to her mouth. “I didn’t see you were on the phone.”

  “What’s wrong?” Vic asked on the other end.

  “Can I call you back? There’s somebody here.”

  “Sure,” Vic said. “But you’d better. I need to know what the fertility doctor said.”

  I’d forgotten that I’d actually manufactured details of a whole doctor’s appointment when Vic and I last spoke. The one where they did all the tests and told you what your actual chances were of having a baby. Sam wasn’t the only one who was good at lying.

  “I’ll call back, definitely,” I said. And when we spoke again, I’d finally tell Vic the truth about everything. I would.

  I turned back to Maude once I’d hung up. Her face was taut, and in her fashionable but formless black shift dress and dull, earth-toned ballet flats, she looked funeral-worthy.

  “I really didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said.

  “That’s okay.”

  “I was in court for the hearing. Why didn’t you tell them about the alibi?” Her tone wasn’t quite accusatory, but almost.

  “The alibi is useful, but complicated.”

  Maude crossed her arms. She looked almost angry now. “But I was trying to help.”

  Help. Such an unfortunate choice of words. Had she fabricated the alibi? Honestly, I didn’t want to know. Because if I knew for a fact that the alibi was false, I wouldn’t be able to use it later at trial—that would be suborning perjury. Having doubts but not knowing anything for sure? That was a different story entirely.

  “I understand,” I said noncommittally.

  “What happens now?” Maude asked, squeezing her arms tighter.

  “Zach stays in jail and there’ll be a trial,” I said. “Between now and then we’ll investigate. The best way to get Zach acquitted will be to find out who actually killed Amanda. That’s not supposed to be our responsibility, but if the defendant didn’t do it, a jury will want to know who did. Have the police interviewed you yet?” I asked, wondering what she’d shared with them, and whether Wendy Wallace might even already know about the alibi.

  “They rescheduled the interview for tomorrow,” Maude said. “Isn’t that strange? That they’re not in any rush? Don’t they want all the facts they can get?”

  They might have been worried Maude would present something contradictory to their theory of the case, maybe about this upstairs encounter Amanda supposedly had—it was the whole basis of Zach’s supposed motive, as far as I could tell.

  “They don’t want all the facts,” I said. “Only the ones that help their case.”

  “That doesn’t sound right.”

  “It’s not.” I shrugged, because Wendy Wallace was only doing her job. “But it is the way the game is played.”

  Amanda

  THREE DAYS BEFORE THE PARTY

  Sarah swung open her door with a delighted grin. “Hell—” Her face fell when she saw the empty steps behind Amanda. “Seriously?”

  “He’ll be here any minute.” It was stupid to keep lying, but Amanda felt so cornered.

  Sarah made a face and crossed her arms. “Any minute?”

  “Okay, he’s not coming.” Amanda hung her head. “Zach really is overwhelmed with the new business. He’s working so hard that he can’t even see straight, much less make it here for a dinner party. I’m sorry, I did try.”

  In truth, Amanda hadn’t even asked Zach. He would have said no anyway, and Amanda would have had to suffer the usual back-and-forth with Zach’s assistant Taylor. A sweet, plain-faced girl with a fixation on fashion magazines and an obsession with one unhealthy diet fad after another, Taylor did her best in a tough situation. If Amanda had asked about the dinner—via email, as was the procedure—Taylor would have written right back, as she always did, that she would check ASAP! Taylor would be just as kindhearted when she wrote back to say: “Sorry! Zach can’t squeeze it in tonight!”

  Amanda didn’t mind if Zach couldn’t be there. But those exchanges with Taylor were excruciating. Just th
inking about it now, standing there at Sarah’s front door, Amanda’s eyes filled with unexpected tears. She blinked and forced a smile, hoping Sarah wouldn’t notice.

  “Oh, no, no. Come on.” Sarah tugged Amanda in the front door and gave her a hug. “Ignore me. I’m being a pain in the ass.”

  “I’ll attest to that!” Kerry called cheerfully as he made his way down the stairs to the kitchen in gray sweatpants and a dark-blue Oklahoma City Thunder T-shirt. “Anyway, we don’t need more husbands. I am plenty.”

  “Happy birthday!” Amanda called.

  “Thank you, thank you.” Kerry gestured regally as he hit the landing.

  “This is for you.” Amanda went over and thrust the wrapped bottle of whiskey, probably too forcefully, in Kerry’s direction.

  Kerry’s face lit up. “For me?”

  “Look at you,” Sarah chirped at Kerry, then turned to Amanda. “You’d think I’d never bought him a gift in his entire life. Or that he hadn’t been told only five minutes ago that sweatpants were not dinner wear.”

  “Yes, my love, but I like sweatpants and it is my birthday. As for your gifts, they come with strings,” Kerry joked. “Taking the garbage out, listening to your stories. It’s all so much work.”

  Sarah turned to Amanda and winked. “That’s the true secret to a good marriage: strategic quid pro quo.”

  Kerry excitedly untied the ribbon at the top of the silvery bag as though it weren’t already completely obvious from the shape that it was a bottle of something.

  “Wow!” he exclaimed once he’d gotten it open.

  His expression turned thoughtful as he studied the bottle. Did he know how much it had cost? Amanda leaned in to point at the label. “I remembered you said that your family was from—”

  “I know,” Kerry said quietly, seeming genuinely touched. “It’s also a damn nice bottle of whiskey.”