The Best Friend

by Adam Mitzner

  “You were just sitting around, waiting all these years to find some way to get back at me, and when you heard Samantha was missing, you figured that this was your chance? I gotta say, that’s some long-term revenge there, Clinton.”

  “No. That’s not right at all. I didn’t take the case to ensure you’d be convicted. If nothing else, I would think you’d have enough respect for my legal abilities to know how easy it would be to throw a case. And the one thing you wouldn’t do, if that was your intent, would be to hire someone like Maggie to second-seat. Rest assured, if I’d wanted you in jail for the rest of your life, that’s where you’d be sitting tonight.”

  “Then I really don’t understand,” he said.

  “I did it for Anne, Nicky. Not for you.”

  He looked at me as if my words had been spoken in a language he didn’t understand, his expression practically begging me to provide the translation. But after a few seconds, he must have realized that I had no intention of enlightening him.

  “Did you know that I saw her shortly before she died?” he asked.

  That cut me. At this point, I’d thought nothing Nicky could say would even sting, but the fact that he and Anne had a history beyond 1986 opened a Pandora’s box.

  He must have sensed my distress, because he quickly attempted to defuse it. “Just once. About a month before she died. I think she reached out to me for you, to be honest. She wanted to close things out on her own terms. To make it clear to me that she had made the right decision in picking you over me. It was unnecessary, of course. I always knew Anne chose the better man. And Anne did too. It’s been sixteen years, but I remember her words nearly verbatim. She said that one day she woke up and realized that she was happier with you than she ever thought possible.”

  The fact that I have not yet untangled this knot after decades of trying provides little hope that it will ever be loosened. But the God’s honest truth is that I defended Nicky to the best of my ability the first time because I truly believed that he was innocent of Carolyn’s murder. When I realized that was not the case, it was too late for me to do anything about it, at least within the ethical rules that govern attorney behavior.

  Which isn’t to say that after I learned the truth about him and Anne, I didn’t fantasize extensively about exacting my revenge. But I’m not a violent man, and certainly not a lawbreaker or believer in vigilantism.

  When I heard about the suspicious death of Nicky’s second wife, however, it was as if the opportunity for retribution had been handed to me on a silver platter. All I had to do was reconnect. From there, I could imagine how it would all unfold. I’d represent him at trial, and he would be convicted. Then, when it was all over, I’d visit him in prison. The scene was so clear in my head: me on one side of the bulletproof partition, him on the other, wearing the prison jumpsuit. Phones in both our hands. He might think we were meeting to discuss his appeal. But then I’d tell him that I knew about his affair with Anne, that he had murdered Carolyn, and this was payback.

  Then I’d walk away, not even allowing him to reply. In the movie version, the final shot would be of my dangling phone and Nicky screaming into the other end, unheard.

  But I went the other way. I did everything in my power to secure Nicky’s freedom, even when I believed he was guilty as charged. Even when I knew I might be assisting him for the second time in getting away with murder.

  I did it because, in order to forgive Anne for her transgression all those years ago, I also needed to forgive Nicky. For some reason, I’d been convinced that if I protected him now, it would prove to my long-dead wife—and, more importantly, to myself—that I forgave her too.

  It was for Anne. It had always been about Anne.

  51.

  Early the next morning, Nicky left for the airport on his way back to Los Angeles. I offered to drive him to JFK, but he said that he had imposed on me enough, and the least he could do was spare me the three-hour round trip. As a result, our final goodbye was in my driveway, the Uber driver bearing witness to the exchange.

  “Will we speak again?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I get it. But if you change your mind, always know that I welcome you being in my life. I can’t undo what happened, but it was a long time ago, and it never meant that I didn’t love you. Just like I don’t for a second think it meant that Anne didn’t love you.”

  It was not Nicky’s place to tell me that my wife loved me. In fact, he might have been the last person from whom I wanted an opinion on the subject.

  “Good luck with everything,” I said. “And when you write about this, and I know you will, be kind about me.”

  He laughed. “You’re always the hero, Clinton. Isn’t that the greatest irony? Even in my telling of our lives, you’re the protagonist, and I end up the villain of the piece.”

  “Anne once told me no one should ever doubt their own guilt.”

  “I know. Believe me, I do.”

  I returned to the house to the smell of frying onions. Ella was in the kitchen making breakfast.

  “Candy eggs,” she said, referencing the one egg dish I cooked well, the caramelization of the onions giving the eggs something of a sweet taste that Ella and Charlotte had loved when they were kids. I hadn’t made the dish since Charlotte’s death, and I was grateful to Ella for cooking them today, a reminder of those breakfasts we’d all eaten together at the small table in our kitchen, where Anne had insisted we share our meals.

  As she stirred the eggs into the pan, Ella told me that she had been following the trial closely in the press. “I have to be honest with you, Dad. At times I wondered what the hell you were doing.”

  “You and Nicky both. Truth be told, Maggie too. But that’s the great thing about winning, isn’t it? All the decisions you make—even the wrong ones—are validated as testaments to your genius.”

  “What mistakes did you make?”

  In truth, not many. Certainly, none that mattered. My decision to waive extradition had been out of concern that Nicky would take his life if he were confined to Lost Hills for the duration of a PC hearing. My other calls—rushing to trial, reserving my opening statement, not putting on a defense—were now validated by the verdict. Even my decision to put Mr. Fox News on the jury had worked the way I thought it would, at least according to the interview he subsequently gave on, of course, Fox News. He confirmed that there was serious dissension among the jurors during deliberations, something I’d been angling for. An inharmonious jury is a defense jury. I couldn’t imagine the woman in the hijab and Mr. Fox News working well together, and apparently they had not.

  “Taking the case,” I answered.

  She laughed, not understanding that I meant it literally. She looked at me, inviting me to comment further, to provide some context to my regret over winning an acquittal for my best friend. But I only smiled, as if I’d made a lame joke.

  I’m certain Ella knew me well enough to tell that I was being serious. She also clearly intuited that I couldn’t explain without divulging certain things I didn’t want her to know.

  Ella’s life experience and professional training made her better than most at understanding human foibles. But no matter how understanding or forgiving their offspring, parents always keep certain things from their children. First on that list is any deficiency in moral composition embedded in the family’s DNA.

  “You think you’ll stay friends with him?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Five minutes earlier, I’d told Nicky the opposite. I still wondered to whom I’d lied.

  Ella’s expression changed. She got that look in her eyes, the one Anne described as the Clint-stare.

  “I’m not going to ask you to break privilege, even though double jeopardy attaches,” she said, “but I am going to ask if you know what happened.”

  “I do.”

  “Both to Samantha Remsen and to his first wife?”

  “Yes. I know everything.”
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  She accepted my response and read my expression for further information. I suspect it was too opaque for her to get a clear take. Ella knew me well enough to understand that I do not lament victory on behalf of a guilty client. And while I’m always overjoyed when I win on behalf of an innocent one, I hadn’t represented enough of them for her to recognize the emotion.

  Gabriel’s presence made itself known as he clumped his way down the stairs. He’s a big man, filled out the way a police officer should be, even though he’s a detective, not a uniform cop. That morning he wore the type of pajama top that buttons up the front. It was not the sleeping attire I imagined him in, and I wondered if it was my daughter’s influence. Probably an outfit she’d bought for him to wear during this visit so he’d have something decent to wear in front of his girlfriend’s father.

  “Something smells delicious,” he said.

  “Very soon you’ll get to try my version of my father’s world-famous candy eggs.”

  “My favorite,” Gabriel said.

  I suddenly felt unexpected joy that my daughter had continued this family tradition, followed by the familiar pang of Charlotte’s absence. And then I felt something else: I wished Anne could be here. Even after all these years, I was happiest when I saw the world through her eyes.

  Without my prompting, Ella set the table in the kitchen, eschewing the much larger one in the dining room. This was one of countless ways she reminded me of Anne without realizing it. When the dish was plated, the eggs looked as I remembered them, and the sweet aroma reminded me of the happiest days of my life.

  My thoughts were broken by Ella tapping her spoon against her coffee mug. I smiled at her attempt to get my attention. Then I realized that she was about to make an announcement. My mind whirred as I wondered whether she’d reveal that she and Gabriel had decided to marry or she’d decided to run for District Attorney.

  But as her mouth began to move, it occurred to me that I was wrong on both counts. There was only one thing that made a young woman’s eyes light up like that.

  “We’re pregnant,” she said. “If everything goes according to plan, sometime in late February you’ll be the grandfather of a baby granddaughter.”

  Another girl joining our family . . . How many times had someone told me during my grief in the aftermath of Charlotte’s murder that life would begin again when Ella had a child? I knew that they meant well, just as I knew it wasn’t true that new life replaced a lost one.

  I stood to hug my daughter. As I did, I realized I was crying.

  Gabriel answered the question that I had not thought important enough to ask. “We’re going to get married as soon as possible. Ella said she didn’t care, but my parents will want us to do it in the usual order. First marriage, then baby.”

  “A small wedding. Just family,” Ella added. “We thought we’d have it in the backyard here, before the weather turns, and before I’m showing too much. Maybe the end of next month.”

  “I’m so happy for both of you,” I managed through my tears. “Yes, absolutely. That all sounds perfect. Whatever you want. Whatever I can do to help.”

  “All we want is for you to give me away,” Ella said.

  “And to let us use your home,” Gabriel added with a chuckle.

  “And that,” Ella agreed. “But we’ve got everything else covered. Including paying for everything.”

  I wasn’t going to fight with my daughter over the bill. Not then, anyway. Later, I’d insist on paying for the wedding, although I knew I’d be no more successful than the time I offered to buy her an apartment after she graduated from law school. My elder daughter is her own person, as she has reminded me time and time again, in both word and deed.

  “There’s one more thing,” Ella said. “I wanted to get your view about naming the baby after Mom and Charlotte. Not sure in which order, though.”

  “That would make them both very happy,” I said.

  “I was asking about you, Dad. Will you be okay holding a little Annie Charlotte or a little Charlotte Anne? Or will it make you sad every time you say her name?”

  The things we think we keep from our children. Had I been asked a moment before whether Ella knew the extent to which I continued to grieve Anne’s death and Charlotte’s murder, I would have said that I’d effectively shielded her from the full extent of my suffering. Obviously, my efforts to carry on stoically had not prevented her from seeing the truth.

  “Of course not,” I said. “I can’t imagine anything that would make me happier.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  One of my favorite parts of the writing process is emailing with readers, so please send me your thoughts about The Best Friend at adam@adammitzner.com. I’ll write back, I promise (although sometimes it takes a few weeks). Also, if you liked the book, please spread the word by writing a review, posting on social media, sending a tweet, or doing it the old-fashioned way by telling friends and family.

  The Best Friend is my eighth novel and, at least according to my wife, my best one, which makes me happy that I might be getting better with practice. But as with all my books, I am indebted to a great many people for helping me along the way, and this is my opportunity to thank them. So, in no particular order:

  Thank you to the great people at Thomas & Mercer, most particularly my amazing editor, Liz Pearsons. Liz has been a champion of my work for a long time, and I am grateful for all she has done for my career. This book was edited by Ed Stackler, who provided me with the first feedback I ever received from a professional about my writing, and I’m grateful that he’s still making my books better. Thank-yous also go out to all the others at Thomas & Mercer who do so much, including, but not limited to, Sarah Shaw; Laura Barrett and Kellie Osborne, who proofread and fact-checked the manuscript (you would be amazed at the mistakes they caught); the folks who designed the cover; and those who get the word out to reviewers and readers.

  Scott Miller has been my literary agent since before I had a book, and I am grateful for his work and the longevity of our relationship, and a thank-you also goes out to his colleague Logan Harper. It is my hope that my writing gets adapted for the screen or television, and therefore a shout-out to Jon Cassir at CAA, who works to make that happen, as well as Emily Siegel and the very nice people of Spectrevision/Company X, who are doing their best to bring the Brodens to television.

  I continue to juggle writing with my responsibilities as the head of the litigation practice at Pavia & Harcourt in New York City. My gratitude goes out to all my law firm colleagues, with a special thanks to George Garcia and Jennifer Fried.

  I am lucky to have friends and family who either read the book in draft and offer suggestions or read it when it’s done and don’t tell me what I should have done differently. Many of them also contribute their names (or the names of their children) to the book: my sister, Jessica Shacter; her husband, Kevin Shacter; Jodi (Shmodie) Siskind; Matt Brooks; Debra Brooks; Ellice Schwab; Margaret Martin; Ted Quinn; Lisa Sheffield; Eric Sheffield; Lily Weitzner; Debbie Peikes; Marilyn Steinthal; Bruce Steinthal; Bonnie Rubin; Jane Goldman; and Gregg Goldman.

  And yes, dear readers, as the dedication reveals, there is a real-life Clint Broden. He has graciously allowed me to borrow his name for my books, but I fictionalize everything else about the character (and he would be the first to tell you that he is taller and a more involved father than his namesake). I can say with confidence that if I ever needed the services of a criminal defense lawyer, I’d hire him, not only because he’s been my friend for nearly forty years but because there’s no one who does it better.

  Beneath the twists and turns, my books are about family, the one you’re born into and the one you create for yourself. That, in turn, makes me treasure my family that much more. My children are all part of my writing, even though only Benjamin reads my books. Hearing his, as he calls them, constructive complaints, is one of the high points of the process for me. In The Best Friend, he made me change the name of the rapper, and although he
wasn’t happy with the name I finally selected (T-Rex), my original name was much worse, I assure you. Rebecca, Michael, and Emily: thank you for your love and support, and I know someday you’ll read my books.

  To my wife, Susan: No thanks can ever be enough. Everything I write, and everything I am, is shaped through the lens of my love for you and our family.

  My final thank-you is to each one of you for reading The Best Friend. It is truly a dream come true to share my writing with you. I look forward to our meeting again next year when The Perfect Marriage comes out.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo © 2016 Matthew Simpkins Photography

  Adam Mitzner is a practicing attorney in a Manhattan law firm and the author of several acclaimed novels, including Never Goodbye and the Amazon Charts bestseller Dead Certain, as well as A Matter of Will, A Conflict of Interest, A Case of Redemption, Losing Faith, and The Girl from Home. Suspense Magazine named A Conflict of Interest one of the best books of 2012, and in 2014, the American Bar Association nominated A Case of Redemption for a Silver Gavel Award. Mitzner and his family live in New York City. Visit him at www.adammitzner.com.