Losing Faith

by Adam Mitzner

  “And then what did you do?”

  Stuart seems confused. “Uh, I cried, I think,” he finally says.

  “No, I’m sorry. I meant did you go down to the gym to see if your wife was there? You know, maybe thinking it must be a mistake and the body in the park was someone else?”

  Lacey knew that Stuart didn’t do this, or at least that he didn’t tell the cops he did. He asked the question solely to get a reaction, and Stuart Christensen did not disappoint. For a guy who just lost his wife, he was clearly in self-preservation mode. Lacey could almost see Stuart doing the math: he wouldn’t have checked the gym for his wife if he knew for a fact that she was dead in Central Park, and the only way he could know that was if he had left her there. At the same time, he likely also knew that the building’s gym had cameras, and so had to assume the FBI had already verified that he didn’t go there that night.

  “I . . . I didn’t go to the gym, no,” Stuart says with pronounced deliberation, “but I did check the apartment. When I got the call, I remember seeing that it was already eleven thirty. She wouldn’t still be working out that late. She obviously wasn’t in bed, so I got up and checked the bathroom, the living room. You know, calling out her name.”

  Lacey nods and writes this down. Not because it matters, but solely so Stuart thinks that his lie about looking for his wife in the apartment has been believed.

  “Okay. Are you aware of anyone who had threatened your wife recently? Anyone who might have wanted to hurt her?”

  “Well . . . I mean, there were always angry defendants, but I’m not aware of a specific threat. There’s the whole business with Nicolai Garkov, of course. She had just revoked his bail and she said something to me about being offered a security detail. She turned it down, though. Said it would make her feel like a prisoner and it wasn’t fair to our neighbors.”

  Lacey already spoke to the people who offered Judge Nichols that protection. However, he was told that Judge Nichols said it was her husband who didn’t want the security detail. Not a huge lie, but one that suggested that prevaricating to law enforcement was becoming something of a routine for Stuart Christensen.

  That was where the NYPD cops had left off. But since the initial interview, the FBI had gone through Judge Nichols’s finances, and that was the primary reason that Lacey was busting Stuart Christensen’s balls at his wife’s memorial service.

  “Mr. Christensen, it’s standard operating procedure in any murder of this kind for us to look at financial records,” Lacey says, trying not to sound as if it’s the gotcha moment it’s about to become. “What we found was that most of your assets—the apartment you live in, the money you have in the bank, the securities account at Merrill Lynch—are comprised almost entirely of what your wife amassed prior to the two of you getting married. Is that right?”

  “I don’t know what you mean by almost entirely,” Stuart says, sounding a little like Bill Clinton parsing the definition of is. “Faith was in private practice before we got married, and she became a judge right after. As I’m sure you know, federal judges make much less money than Windsor Taft equity partners, and so, yeah, Faith earned most of our savings and bought our co-op before we got together.”

  Lacey knew he was getting to Stuart. He could tell by the way Stuart looked around the room, as if scoping the exits in case he needed to get out of there fast. Lacey wouldn’t be surprised if the Maybe I should talk to a lawyer before we continue card was played very soon. That means he needs to move quickly through the other questions he has or they might never be answered.

  “And there’s a large insurance policy on your wife that names you the beneficiary,” Lacey says. “Two point five million. Are you aware of that?”

  “Yes,” Stuart says in a clipped voice, undoubtedly hearing how bad this sounds. “All the partners at her old law firm got large policies as part of their compensation. When you leave the firm, you can take it with you, which Faith did.”

  “I understand,” Lacey says. “And how were things between you and your wife?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I said. Were you getting along well? Were you not getting along well? How were things?”

  “Good. Very good, in fact. I mean . . . well, I imagine this is going to come out anyway, but Faith was being considered for the U.S. ­Supreme Court.”

  Lacey hadn’t heard anything about the Supreme Court, but it was Stuart’s smile when he made the disclosure, as phony as a bad toupee, that was the real discovery.

  “You have your own architecture firm here, don’t you?”

  “Yes. Yes I do,” Stuart says, smiling more naturally now, as if he’s finally pleased to be talking about himself rather than his dead wife.

  “Were you planning on moving your architecture practice to DC? Or were you two talking about a commuter-type relationship?”

  Stuart looks like a guy who just stepped in shit. “We hadn’t made definitive plans or anything,” he says. “She had to, you know, get nominated first, and I wasn’t sure she’d take it even if it was offered . . .” His voice trails off, seemingly in recognition that he was digging a deeper hole for himself with every word. “Look, I’m sorry, but I’m obviously not in a great frame of mind, which I’m sure you can imagine, given the circumstances.”

  There was one last topic. The reason husbands kill their wives other than money.

  “There’s just one more thing I need to know, and then we’re done,” Lacey says. “Was there . . . anyone in your wife’s life that she didn’t want you to know about?”

  “Are you asking if my wife was having an affair?”

  “I’m sorry to be indelicate, especially today, but the fact is that she was in Central Park when she told you she was at the gym . . . Sometimes—not always, but sometimes—when a wife lies to her husband about her whereabouts, it’s because she’s with another man. Or in some cases, another woman. So my question to you is whether you knew about anything like that.”

  “No,” Stuart says flatly.

  Lacey wonders if there’s going to be more, expecting a flowery speech in which Stuart professes his undying love for his wife and hers for him. But that simple negative declaration is all he says.

  “Okay,” Lacey says. “I appreciate your time, Mr. Christensen. I may have some follow-up questions, and if I do, I’ll reach out to you again.”

  As they shake hands good-bye, Lacey can see the unease in Stuart Christensen’s face. Rather than give Lacey cause for empathy, it emboldens him to turn the screws a bit more.

  “I promise you this, sir,” Lacey says while still holding Faith’s widower’s hand tightly and staring at him good and hard, “we will catch your wife’s killer. I guarantee you that.”

  21

  After the memorial, Aaron returns to Cromwell Altman. He tells Diane not to disturb him and takes refuge behind his closed door.

  Alone, he starts to organize the evidence against him. An order of proof, it’s called. The traditional way is to divide a sheet of legal-pad paper in thirds the long way. In the left-most column the facts are set out, in the center is the evidence supporting those facts, and on the far right is the rebuttal, if there is any.

  First, there’s the affair. At least he and Faith were careful never to enter or leave the Ritz-Carlton together—or even be seen in public in each other’s company, for that matter. And he always paid in cash, so there’d be no electronic record of his paying for the room. But the hotel always made a copy of his driver’s license, and so if the FBI knew to go to the Ritz-Carlton, they’d have proof of his weekly visits.

  Then there were the phone calls.

  He always used prepaid phones so that Faith’s phone number didn’t show up on his cell bill. He didn’t know if the FBI could tell that the calls were from burner phones, but he suspected they could, as the calls from one number stopped after a minutes threshold
was met, usually a hundred, because Aaron bought prepaid phones in that denomination. Then the calls resumed from a different number. That would almost certainly be enough for the FBI to assume Faith was having an affair.

  At least Aaron knew enough to always activate the phones outside of the place he bought them, and so he didn’t think law enforcement could trace the phones to the place of purchase, which meant it was highly unlikely that they’d be able to link the calls back to him. Even if they flashed his picture at every place on the Upper East Side that sold burner phones, Aaron couldn’t believe that anyone could remember who bought a phone a few months ago. They must sell tons of them every week.

  The last set of phone calls was an entirely different matter, however. If the FBI traced the phone he used the night Faith was murdered back to the place where he bought it, the odds of identification were much greater, especially if they got to the store clerk soon, while his memory was fresh. Calm down, he tells himself. Why would the FBI even think to go to 102nd and Amsterdam?

  Just as he was feeling a sense of peace, however, an even worse thought struck Aaron. If there was any physical evidence linking him to Faith and their meeting in the park—a single strand of his hair, his fingerprint on her coat, even some type of carpet fiber that existed only in his office—he’d be toast.

  And he just couldn’t rule that out.

  RACHEL DIDN’T GIVE ANY serious thought to attending Faith Nichols’s memorial service. She never spoke to Judge Nichols outside of the unpleasant interaction they’d shared in the Garkov case, and she felt no need to use a murder to network. Besides, she knew that Aaron would be monopolized by the A-listers, and spending time with him was the only reason she would have wanted to be there.

  So she waited patiently for his return, and when she heard the commotion of the others coming back, she made her way up to his office.

  “He in?” she asks Diane.

  “He said he wanted some quiet time,” Diane answers, “but I’m sure he’d be happy to see you. Go on in.”

  When Rachel enters, she sees Aaron staring intently at a yellow legal pad, a pen in his hand. It’s a startling sight, as Aaron never handles the first draft of anything.

  “Hey, you,” she says.

  “Hey yourself,” he says back.

  Aaron looks pleased to see her, which, as always, instantly buoys her spirits. But she senses that something is off too, and that concerns her.

  “How was the memorial?” she asks.

  “About what you’d expect. Blowhards being blowhards. Senator Kheel was there. Judge Nichols’s husband gave the main eulogy, so at least someone talked about parts of her life that weren’t related to her job, although it sounded like he barely knew her too.”

  “Makes me glad I didn’t go,” Rachel says.

  “I wish I’d opted out as well. Oh, and the cherry on the sundae of my day was that Garkov fired us. Clint Broden accosted me as I was leaving the church and told me that we’re out and he’s in. I can’t say that I’m too upset about it, but I’m not looking forward to tomorrow’s COC meeting. It’s going to be a full-on assault. A lot of hand-wringing and over-the-top rhetoric about how I’ve put the firm’s future in jeopardy.”

  There’s a moment of silence, during which Rachel debates whether to say what’s on her mind. Then she does.

  “You know, I was thinking, it’s a tradition that when a case ends to have a blowout dinner, and even though the Garkov case was short-lived . . . I think it merits some type of celebration, don’t you?”

  The moment the invitation is made, Rachel worries that she’s been too aggressive. Aaron deliberates longer than she thinks he should, and so she tries to pull it back.

  “You can say no if you have something else going on. But now that Garkov isn’t in our future and we’ve got some downtime, I thought we should make the most of it.”

  “Sure,” Aaron says. “Felidia? Eight o’clock?”

  “Great. I’ll meet you there,” she says.

  Rachel’s too good a litigator not to know that when you get the answer you want, you say thank you and get out before anyone can change their mind. And so she leaves Aaron’s office as giddy as a schoolgirl, visions of a romantic evening dancing in her head.

  22

  Clint Broden hates visiting clients in prison. He sometimes wonders why he hasn’t come to terms with it by now, given how often he does it, but frequency has not made it any more bearable. He dislikes everything about it—from the way every article of his clothing seems to set off the metal detectors, to the impossible temperature of the facilities (freezing in the winter; stifling hot in summer), to the rancid stench of body odor that permeates the air. Worst of all, you can’t bring in any food or drinks, and although there are soda machines for visitors, they stock only Coke products, and Clint Broden is a die-hard Pepsi man through and through.

  Broden got the collect call from the MCC just as he was hearing about Faith Nichols’s untimely demise. His first instinct was that Aaron Littman had thrown Garkov overboard, not wanting to sully his white shoes by representing a judge killer. But then Garkov gave him the full download of what was going on. Although years of experience had taught Broden not to believe half of what clients told him, he believed every single word of Garkov’s story about his effort to get Aaron Littman to blackmail Faith Nichols into letting him go free. It was just too fantastic to be fiction.

  Even before hearing that Garkov had been blackmailing his previous attorney, Broden knew that most of the city’s elite lawyers wouldn’t touch Garkov with a pole of any length. But even assuming Garkov was guilty of everything he had been charged with and the things he hadn’t been—namely the Red Square bombing and, as of right now, the murder of Judge Nichols—he still wouldn’t be anywhere near the worst client Clint Broden ever represented. That distinction went to Thomas Lee Curtis, who Broden should have known was twisted simply by the fact that he demanded to be called by his full name at all times. Thanks to Broden’s good work, Curtis never spent a day in jail or even stood trial, despite the fact that he raped and murdered nine children and freely acknowledged to Broden that it might well be twice that number. He just couldn’t remember.

  Guilt, innocence, the severity of the crime—those issues were irrelevant to Clint Broden. He had only two criteria for taking on clients: money and challenge, and the former didn’t matter if the latter was great enough.

  Of course, Garkov had both in spades, which made him the perfect client as far as Broden was concerned. The fact that it also meant Broden got to personally fire the high and mighty Aaron Littman was just icing on the cake.

  “Nicolai,” Broden says, “sorry to be meeting under such circumstances, but my hope is that your stay here will be short.”

  Garkov didn’t look any worse for wear. He had no bruises or other telltale signs that he wasn’t making friends inside. Of course, Broden figured that even the toughest guy in lockup would think twice before tangling with a seven-foot-tall terrorist connected to the Russian mob.

  “How was the funeral?” Garkov asks.

  “Do you really care?” Broden says quickly.

  “No, not really. So long as she’s dead, I’m good.”

  Broden ignores the comment. “I ran into Aaron Littman at the memorial. Short conversation, just what we talked about.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “Not much. He wasn’t surprised you were making the switch. Told me that he never wanted to represent you in the first place.”

  “So, who’d we get?” Garkov asks.

  “The honorable Milton Koletsky.”

  “Jew?”

  “African-American.”

  “Same thing. Just as long as it’s not some bitch again.”

  “Well, without endorsing your broad view of racial and gender generalizations, I will say that Koletsky is very good for us. I’ve already
filed an application that house arrest be reinstated, and there’s a hearing set for this afternoon. No guarantees, but my guess is that you’ll be spending tomorrow night back on your twelve-hundred-thread-count sheets.”

  The news that he’ll be home soon doesn’t change Garkov’s expression. It’s as if he already assumed as much.

  Believing that Aaron Littman was sleeping with Faith Nichols and Garkov’s being a blackmailer was one thing, but Broden was far more skeptical about Garkov’s protestation that he was innocent of Faith Nichols’s murder. Not only was it readily apparent to Broden that Garkov was a man devoid of any conscience whatsoever, but Garkov was smart, and unlike some of the stupid actions clients have been known to undertake while awaiting trial—little things like trying to bribe FBI agents and lying about assets that are easily found—killing the judge was a very smart move.

  A law-and-order devotee like Faith Nichols was almost certainly going to find Garkov guilty and then sentence him to the max. And if a superseding indictment were filed with a murder charge, it was a lethal-injection situation. But with Judge Koletsky, Garkov probably had an even-money shot at acquittal. Even if Garkov were convicted, a bleeding heart like Koletsky might sentence him to less than ten years. Garkov could probably do that standing on his head.

  Broden takes a good long look at his client. Nicolai Garkov’s smug expression suggests that it’s entirely possible he’s actually orchestrated everything from the get-go.

  23

  Felidia occupies the bottom two floors of a narrow town house just around the corner from Bloomingdale’s. It’s as close to a New York City institution as restaurants get, given that a five-year stint is considered noteworthy and Felidia has survived for a quarter-century.

  Rachel knows that Felidia is one of Aaron’s favorite dining spots, reminding him of a restaurant he loves in Rome, with its rich dark-paneled room juxtaposed with the lit garden in the rear. He took her here two years ago to celebrate her ascension to the partnership. The memory of that dinner—and the three drinks too many she consumed—rushes back to her as she enters the restaurant.