Rosie turns off the TV and says, “This case has certainly touched some raw nerves.”
I agree. I ask her if she’s spoken to Ann.
“Yes. Natalie’s doctor has put her on stronger medication,” she tells me. “I’m worried about her. Ann’s going to stay with her tonight.” She looks at me and asks, “Are you going to be all right?”
“I hope so.”
She puts her hand on my cheek. “Would you like to stay with me tonight? Grace is staying at my mom’s.”
My stomach churns. “I’d like that.” I need it.
Rosie’s phone rings. She picks up and looks surprised. “That’s awfully quick,” she says. “What time?” She hangs up. “The jury’s back,” she says. “They’d decided to deliberate into the evening. They’re going to read the verdict at nine o’clock tomorrow.”
Wow. They’ve been out for only six hours. They certainly didn’t waste any time, but I remind myself that short deliberations don’t necessarily cut either way. It is almost impossible to predict which way a jury will go. “Do me a favor,” I say. “Tomorrow’s going to be very rough for Natalie. Would you go out to the house and come with her and Ann to court? I have a feeling she’ll need you.”
“Sure.”
I spend a sleepless, stomach-churning night staring at the whirling ceiling fan in Rosie’s bedroom. My demons always come out at night. I barely slept during our divorce and custody hearings. Every time I close my eyes, I see all the faces: Skipper’s once charismatic glow reduced to a hollow pallor; Natalie’s once brilliant eyes, now virtually lifeless; Turner’s self-righteous smirk; Martinez’s confident facade; Anderson’s complacent grin; Ann’s icy stare. I see the pain on Ernie Clemente’s face and the resignation on Ramon Aguirre’s. I see fear and desperation in the eyes of Johnny Garcia and Andy Holton.
At four A.M., I look at Rosie. Even with all the trauma in our lives, she manages to sleep at night. I don’t know how she does it. I’ve always loved the way she smiles when she sleeps. She looks so content. Somehow, she senses that I’m looking at her and her eyes flutter open. She looks at me and says, “Go to sleep, Mike. Things will look better in the morning. They always do.” She rubs my back for a moment and then rolls over and goes back to sleep.
“I love you, Rosita Fernandez,” I whisper to her back.
46
“WE HAVE A SITUATION, YOUR HONOR”
“Prominent local businessman Donald Martinez denies accusations of funding a porn business and tax evasion.”
—SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28.
Skipper, Molinari and I sit at the defense table. I look around for Rosie, but there’s no sign of her yet. She went to pick up Natalie and Ann. Payne and McNulty are talking quietly at the prosecution table.
Judge Kelly takes her place on the bench and studies her notes.
Skipper leans over and whispers, “What do you think?”
Beats the hell out of me. “Innocent,” I say.
Judge Kelly turns to me and asks, “Any last-minute issues?”
“No, Your Honor.”
As I’m saying this, I hear voices behind me and I turn around. A uniformed police officer is coming down the center aisle. “Excuse me, Your Honor,” he says.
Judge Kelly asks, “What is it, Officer Nevins?”
The uniform approaches the bench and says, “Your Honor, I apologize for the interruption. Mr. Daley has an emergency phone call.”
My heart pounds. I glance at Skipper, who gives me a puzzled look. Did something happen to Grace? To Rosie? “From whom?” I ask.
“Ms. Fernandez.”
I turn to the judge and say, “Your Honor, if I could ask your indulgence for just a moment.”
“Yes, Mr. Daley.”
I motion Skipper to stay put. My heart is pounding as the officer escorts me outside the courtroom. He opens a cell phone and punches a button. “Ms. Fernandez, it’s Officer Nevins. Mr. Daley is with me.” He hands me the phone.
“Rosie?”
“Yes.”
“Are you okay? What’s going on? They’re about to read the verdict.”
“Go back inside and ask the judge for a recess.” Her voice is shaking.
“Why? What happened?”
“It’s Natalie. She committed suicide last night.”
Dear God.
“It looks as though she swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills.”
My mind races. “Where are you?”
“At the house. Ann and I found her. The police are here.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Mike?”
“Yes?”
“There’s something else you need to know.” I hear her gulp. “There’s a suicide note. Natalie wrote that she put the GHB in the champagne flutes. Mike, Skipper didn’t drug Johnny Garcia—Natalie did.”
Jesus Christ. I hand the phone back to Officer Nevins and take a deep breath. Then he escorts me back into the courtroom. As soon as I walk inside, Skipper stands and looks right at me. I hurry down the aisle and put my arm on his shoulder. I whisper, “I have some very sad news. Natalie decided to take her own life last night.” He slumps into my arms as I whisper, “I’m so very sorry, Skipper.”
The courtroom is spinning. I hear the buzz of the gallery, the banging of Judge Kelly’s gavel. Skipper is sobbing into my shoulder. Above the roar, I hear the judge’s voice saying, “Mr. Daley? Mr. Daley?”
Skipper falls back into his chair. I see Turner coming toward us down the aisle. I realize Ed Molinari is standing next to me. I look at Judge Kelly and say, “May it please the court, we would respectfully request a brief recess. We have a situation, Your Honor.”
47
“MY VERY DEAR PRENTICE”
“The wife of San Francisco district attorney Prentice Marshall Gates the Third was found dead in her Pacific Heights mansion this morning, the victim of an apparent suicide. Her husband’s murder trial has been delayed while police investigate.”
—KGO RADIO. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28. TEN A.M.
A caravan of police cars leaves the Hall of Justice and heads for Skipper’s house. Judge Kelly, Hillary Payne and Bill McNulty are riding together in an unmarked car. I’m jammed between Skipper and Turner in the backseat of a squad car. Ed Molinari is behind us in his Jaguar. The judge agreed to delay any further proceedings. For the moment, the trial is in limbo.
I hear the barking of the police radio. Two uniforms sit in the front seat. Skipper is staring straight ahead. He hasn’t said a word since we got in the car. Turner’s eyes are closed. He swallows every few seconds.
I fold my hands in my lap. I listen to the police band. I watch the cars stream by on Van Ness and then Broadway. It’s hot outside and the car is stuffy. I can smell Turner’s cologne. Time creeps.
There are a half dozen black-and-whites parked in front of the house. Skipper gets out first. Ann is waiting at the door and she hugs her father. I see Rosie standing behind her.
Elaine McBride and Roosevelt Johnson meet us in the foyer and express their condolences to Skipper. The judge, Payne and McNulty join us. McBride tells us that Rod Beckert and a team from the coroner’s office are in the bedroom.
Skipper asks Ann what happened. She says Rosie arrived at eight. Natalie hadn’t gotten up yet, so they went to wake her. The door to her room was locked, and they knocked but got no answer. They kicked in the door and found her.
“Sleeping pills?” Turner asks.
Ann nods. “There was an empty bottle next to the bed.”
We stand in silence. Then Skipper takes Ann by the hand and they go into the atrium. I whisper to the assembled group, “We should give them a moment.” We can hear their sobs as we stand there. I look at Roosevelt and ask, “Was it a suicide?”
He glances at Judge Kelly and says, “I’m not allowed to make any official determinations on cause of death.”
“I know. Was it a suicide?”
He shrugs and says, “It seems to be. It
looks like she swallowed an entire bottle of sleeping pills.”
Turner is visibly distraught. “Did she feel any pain?” he asks.
Roosevelt shakes his head and says, “Probably not.”
We’re all silent for a moment, then I say, “I understand she left a note.”
Roosevelt nods. “Yes.” He asks us to wait in the hallway. He returns a moment later with two clear plastic bags. There’s a sheet of paper in each. I read it through the plastic. Turner and the judge are reading over my shoulder. The handwriting is steady and very clear.
My very dear Prentice,
By the time you read this, I will be gone. I am completely spent. I have no energy left to protect you. I can no longer lie for you and I cannot bear to watch you suffer. Nor can I stand my own pain. I cannot continue the charade that our marriage became more than twenty years ago. I cannot live with the daily humiliation of watching my husband parade all over town with female and now male prostitutes. You need help, my love. You have for a long time. I am too weary to keep telling you this anymore.
I have never stopped loving you, Prentice, but I cannot live with the emptiness any longer. I went to Turner for comfort. Be kind to him. He has helped me through some very difficult times.
You took away my dignity, Prentice, and you would not seek help, so I decided to take away your political dreams. The only way I could think of doing this was to show you that I had the power to expose you.
But it went terribly wrong, my dear, and I cannot live with the consequences. I knew you had set up the assignation when the champagne was delivered to the room. I had been waiting for such an opportunity, because it was the last resort I could think of to compel you to seek help. I wanted you to wake up and find your self with an unconscious prostitute in your room. I planned ahead. I obtained GHB over the Internet. I have become quite proficient at obtaining medication for my depression over the Internet and it was not difficult to obtain the GHB. I kept the vial with me always, waiting for the right time. It seemed so simple: to put a drop or two in the flutes when no one was looking, so that when you poured the champagne, you would both be sedated and sleep through the night. When you woke up, you would have found him there with you, and you would have faced a difficult if not impossible situation—not unlike my own. My plan was to confront you when you came home—to show you that I knew everything that had happened and demonstrate to you once and for all that I had the power to humiliate you and end your political career if you did not get help immediately. If you refused or argued with me, I was going to show you the materials I had planted in your storage locker. I knew you kept the photos of those prostitutes at your desk. I had them copied. This would have been a final confirmation that I could—and would—bring you down.
But instead of your waking up with the prostitute still in your bed, the waiter found you and the Garcia boy was dead. I was appalled when I learned this and that you had been arrested for his murder. The weeks since then have been unendurable, and when I heard in court that the GHB might have been the cause of death, I could no longer face myself. I never intended to kill anyone, Prentice. I cannot live with the possibility that I am responsible for it. I hope somehow you will understand.
I will miss you very much, my beloved. I hope you will be able to remember and cherish the good times. And please look in on Ann. She loves you.
Natalie
I swallow hard. Judge Kelly bites her lip. Turner looks away. Payne and McNulty read the letter after us and hand it back to Roosevelt. I say to him, “I’d like to show this to Skipper.”
He looks at Judge Kelly, who nods. I take it to Skipper. I am with him and Ann as he reads it. Tears stream down their faces.
Then Skipper turns to me and says, “We’d like to see Natalie.”
“Let me see what I can do.” I go back to the foyer. “Your Honor,” I say, “under the circumstances, I would ask you to permit Mr. Gates and his daughter to have a few moments alone with Mrs. Gates. You have my word that they won’t touch anything or otherwise disturb the evidence.”
Judge Kelly reflects for a moment. She casts a glance at McBride, who says, “Given the circumstances, it’s okay with me.” Payne nods. Roosevelt says he’ll ask the people from the coroner’s office to step out of the room for a moment.
I return to Skipper and tell him they’ve agreed. “I’ll come with you if you’d like,” I say.
“I’d appreciate that.” He looks at Ann and says, “Come on, honey. Let’s go say good-bye.”
48
“I NEVER MEANT TO HURT HER”
“My charitable work brings me great joy and satisfaction. If you touch just one life, it’s worth it.”
—NATALIE GATES.
“She looks so peaceful,” Ann says.
She’s holding Skipper’s hand as they gaze at Natalie, her head resting against the pillow, her eyes closed, the blanket smooth over her body. Death has erased the lines of tension that were so palpable these last weeks; peaceful is indeed the word for what we see before us. The sunlight cascades across her face. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect the team from the coroner’s office tidied up the scene before Roosevelt escorted them out to the hallway. It was a kind gesture.
“She could be asleep,” Skipper says at last, his voice breaking. “She’s as—as lovely as the first time I saw her. All those years … I don’t know why everything went so wrong.” He sighs and Ann turns to him.
“Don’t, Daddy. We can’t change it,” she says gently. “She’s left us. Now it’s time for us to leave her.”
As she eases him away from the bed, he looks at Natalie one last time, and as we leave the room, I hear him say under his breath, “I never meant to hurt her.”
—————
Later that afternoon, we’re all in the living room—Skipper, Ann, Turner and I. Judge Kelly and the prosecutors have returned to the Hall of Justice, but the judge agreed to let Skipper remain at the house for the day so that he and Ann could take care of the funeral arrangements. They’re done at last, and as we sit quietly in that gracious room, I realize we’re all aware of the empty armchair that was Natalie’s. It’s a melancholy time.
And then, abruptly, I see Skipper sit erect and take charge of himself, as if he’s had enough of regrets. It’s a different Skipper all of a sudden; even his stance looks focused determined. Turner sees it, too, though I’m not sure from his expression that he’s happy about it.
“I need to tell you what happened that night,” Skipper says to Ann. “I should have told you long ago. I can’t explain it all—I only know what I did, and saw, but you need to know I didn’t kill the Garcia boy. I can’t tell you when he died. I can only tell you that up to the time he passed out, he was alive. He was breathing. He’d passed out right after we”—he struggles to find the right words; Ann may be an adult, but still she’s his daughter and this is hard for him—“we had sex, but he was okay. And when I came to in the morning, when the waiter woke me up, he wasn’t—he was dead.” It’s almost as if he’s seeing Garcia’s body all over again, he looks so anguished, but I can also sense he’s glad to get this off his chest.
Ann is silent, but she reaches for his hand and strokes it. I ask Skipper whether Johnny had been his usual self when he came to the room.
“Not really,” he says. “There was nothing different about the arrangements—I set it up with Andy Holton the way I always did; Garcia was to come to my room at one o’clock. But he was really high when he got there, frantic to the point of panic. I guess heroin can have that effect sometimes. I tried to talk him down, and when that didn’t work, I poured him a glass of champagne—I figured the alcohol would calm him. He must still have been panicky, though, because there were those calls to Anderson. I never even knew he made them—I guess it was when I was in the bathroom.”
Still, they went through the usual routine, he tells us; and it was only after Garcia passed out that he realized there was trouble. “I couldn’t wake him. He was out cold,
and I couldn’t get the cuffs off. I was scared. I tried to reach Holton, but I couldn’t, so I called Turner for help. And I drank a glass of champagne to calm myself while I was waiting for you,” he says to Turner, “and that’s the last I remember. I must have passed out, too.”
“Before that, when you were trying to get the cuffs off,” I ask, “was his face still covered with tape?”
“Yes. But only his eyes and mouth—not his nose. I didn’t tape his nose. I could hear him breathing. In fact, I listened for it because I was worried about his passing out like that. But it sounded perfectly normal. And that must mean,” he says to us, “that somebody else did it. Came into the room when I was out and … suffocated him. And I keep trying to figure out who—and why.”
It’s interesting. For the first time in ages, I perceive signs of lawyer-thinking in Skipper. It’s been impossible to discern amid all the bombast of the politician in action. In fact, it wasn’t easy to find back in the old law firm where we were uneasy partners. Even then, he was too busy working all the angles, promoting himself.
I pick up on what he’s just said. “Let’s look at the possibilities,” I say. “First, of course, is why? Who’d have had it in for you to the point of setting you up for murder? You’ve got plenty of enemies—politicians do, and as the DA you made still more of them. But murder—that’s a stretch.”
Ann’s been following all this quietly, but now she speaks up. “Why are you so sure Daddy was the object of the plot—if it was a plot?” she asks. “Look, we can forget about the GHB. We know Mother did that, but even if it’s what knocked them both out, it isn’t what killed Garcia. He didn’t die accidentally, he was suffocated. Somebody deliberately covered his nose with tape. Maybe killing him was the point. Let’s concentrate on him for a moment. Let’s assume your being there was a coincidence—convenient, to take advantage of, but that’s all. In that case, who could have wanted Garcia dead?”
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