by Adam Mitzner
“Here it is. The exact quote is ‘The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.’”
“The power of sin is the law,” he repeats. “What does that mean?”
“Funny you should ask, because I was reading some commentary on it . . .”
“And?”
“You know, a lot of mumbo jumbo. But one of the interpretations I thought was interesting was that if it weren’t for the law, no one would know that they’d sinned. You only actually realize what you’ve done is wrong because it’s prohibited.”
“That’s a little backward, don’t you think? It’s not the illegality that makes something wrong. It’s inherently wrong first, so it’s made illegal.”
“I suppose that’s the conundrum that’s being posited in the scripture. One of the commentators made the point that sometimes you don’t even think about sin until you’re told it’s sin, and then it’s all you can think about. The example he used was a group of kids walking by an abandoned house. If there’s no sign, they would probably just walk by. But put a ‘No Trespassing’ sign out in front and all of a sudden they’re tempted to sneak inside. And, whether they go inside or not, the damage is already done. They’ve sinned because they’re thinking about going inside, and they want to go inside. The only thing stopping them—if they are stopped at all, that is—is the fear that they’ll get caught. Which means that they’re no longer pure of heart. In other words, now they’re sinners.”
Gabriel considers this for a moment. Then he smiles. “With all due respect to the Apostle Luke—”
“This one was Paul.”
“Same difference. I think that’s a load of crap. On this, I’m just a simple cop. There’s right and there’s wrong. And . . . you know, lusting in your heart or whatever, that’s not wrong. That’s being human. It’s whether you choose to act that matters. The law punishes action, not thought, and not sin. If God wants to punish sinful thoughts, so be it. But the NYPD does not.”
“You want to know what’s a load of crap?”
“Please, enlighten me.”
“The notion that you’re a simple cop.”
19.
DANA GOODWIN
Richard Trofino lives on Park Avenue between Seventy-Third and Seventy-Fourth Streets, in a limestone-clad, prewar, elevator building. A white-gloved doorman wearing a full uniform, including jacket and tie, holds the door.
It was Gabriel’s decision not to question Richard before the funeral. As a result, his only contact with the police since the vomit incident was when he told Gabriel over the phone that he didn’t know his wife’s iPhone passcode. I didn’t voice any objection to giving Richard some time to mourn. I understand the strategy behind it—allow the suspect to relax a bit. Maybe he’ll get a false sense of security, infer that our lack of interest in him means that he’s not a suspect.
Of course, I have my own reasons for not wanting to question Richard until he’s good and ready to talk. Not the least of which is to avoid being on the receiving end of his last meal.
Gabriel called ahead to set up the appointment. I half expected Richard to tell us that he’d lawyered up, but he said he was available at our convenience.
As soon as Gabriel and I enter the building, a second white-gloved doorman, this one with a mustache to match, asks who we’re here to see.
“Richard Trofino,” I say.
“And who may I say is visiting?” the doorman asks.
“You may say it’s Dana Goodwin and Gabriel Velasquez,” Gabriel says, flashing his badge. “But before you do, I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
The doorman looks like he’s just smelled something foul. I suspect he’s under strict instructions by the co-op board not to speak to law enforcement or the press.
Gabriel doesn’t give him the chance to decline. “How many other exits and entrances to the building?”
“We’re going to get the building plans,” I add quickly, “so it’s not like you’re giving us information we won’t have by the end of the day. But we’d rather hear it from you. If you’re wrong, no worries. No one will know you were the source of the information.”
That does the trick. He says, “Four. The service entrance is manned from six a.m. to eleven p.m. The others are always locked. There’s a door out to the garage, and then two fire exits, one on the north and one on the south.”
“The ones that are locked . . . does anyone other than staff have keys?” Gabriel follows up.
“Everyone in the building.”
“What about security cameras?”
“Yeah, but the north one is busted. We’re waiting on a part.”
“Who knows about the busted camera?” I ask.
“The board.”
“Is Mr. Trofino on the board?” Gabriel asks.
“Yes. He’s the chairman.”
“Thank you,” Gabriel says. “Why don’t you tell Mr. Trofino that he has visitors now.”
Richard greets us at his door. He looks better than he did during our last one-on-one encounter, but that was a particularly low bar. The sharpness that I associate with him—the look in his eyes that he’s one step ahead—is once again front and center.
Richard leads us into the living room. The furniture befits grownups who don’t fear children’s messes—lots of white and beige surfaces. Under the picture window is a long sofa, and that’s where he decides to sit. He motions with his hand that Gabriel and I should take the chairs opposite him.
“We’re starting to develop some more information,” Gabriel says once we’re settled. “Most important, we found the murder weapon.”
Gabriel had told me not to share with Richard that it had been tossed a stone’s throw from his residence. We want to avoid Richard lawyering up. Indeed, given that Richard has a dozen lawyers on retainer, it’s somewhat surprising he hasn’t played that card yet. Although, as Gabriel pointed out, it’s one thing to stand behind lawyers in a business dispute and quite another when it’s about your wife’s murder.
“It was registered to a man named Gregory Papamichael.”
Richard seems confused, which is not a look he wears comfortably. “Why would he kill Lauren?”
“Have you ever heard that name before?” I ask.
“No. I don’t think so. Should I have?”
“He’s a former police detective,” Gabriel says. “He’s been dead for two years.”
“We think that he supplied the gun,” I explain. “Which is why we’re trying to track down anyone who has any type of connection to your wife and who knew Detective Papamichael well enough for him to give them a gun.”
Richard sighs in a way that makes clear he knows we were trying to trick him into an admission. “Well, I didn’t.”
“Did Lauren?” Gabriel asks.
“I said I never heard the name before,” he says sharply, visibly upset by the path we’re pursuing. He has correctly deduced that it leads to him as his wife’s murderer. “That means I have no idea whether Lauren knew the man.”
“We also heard that your wife was considering running against Drake McKenney for DA,” I say, moving the suspicion away from Richard and on to McKenney for the moment. “Is that true?”
He blinks, and for a moment it seems as if he doesn’t understand the relevance of his wife’s future political plans. But then he shows a subtle twitch that indicates he’s fully caught up.
“Yeah,” he says. “She was a few weeks away from making it official.”
“How widespread do you think the news was about your wife’s potential challenge?” Gabriel asks.
“I don’t know. It wasn’t a state secret. We’d put out feelers to potential staffers, to see if they’d be interested in coming aboard, that kind of thing.”
I follow up. “Do you think Drake McKenney knew?”
“He knew,” Richard says without hesitation. “He actually chewed me out over it. He thinks being DA is his God-given right.”
“When was this?”
&nbs
p; “Just last week.”
“What did he say?” Gabriel asks.
“I don’t remember his exact words . . . but it was along the lines of how he’d bury Lauren, and then he’d come after the mayor and me. Something like that, but with more profanity.”
This is enough to put Drake McKenney on the suspect list. Right alongside the man who just placed him there. But if it’s true that misery loves company, then it’s even truer for murder suspects.
“There’s something else, and this type of thing is always delicate,” Gabriel says. “Did you have any suspicion or knowledge that there might have been someone else in Lauren’s life?”
“Like . . . a lover or something like that?” Richard asks.
“Yes,” I say. “We’re asking because . . . well, she did leave the apartment after midnight. We thought it might have been to meet someone.”
He looks at me with contempt. As if he’s saying that I should know better than to ask such a question. He’d be better served keeping such thoughts to himself, however, because right now he looks as if he has murder on his mind.
I can’t deny that it frightens me to see Richard’s anger so raw. But I hold my ground. It’s critical that he commit to a position on this now. So I prod him.
“I know it’s hard for you to imagine, but whenever a spouse is murdered, that’s always the police’s first line of inquiry. Of course, we know that she wouldn’t have told you about an affair or anything like that. But we’re asking if you had reason to suspect. Was she out more than usual lately? Any changes in her demeanor toward you? That kind of thing.”
Richard processes what I’ve just said for a moment, and then I see it register in his eyes. Like a switch that’s been flipped. Men like him see the angles before the straight lines, and he’s just connected the dots. If he knew his wife was unfaithful, he had motive to kill her.
“No. Lauren would never do something like that. And it wasn’t that uncommon that when she couldn’t sleep, she’d go for a walk. I must have told her a million times it wasn’t safe so late, but she always reminded me that we lived on Park Avenue.”
I look over to Gabriel to see if he’s buying what Richard Trofino is selling. By the narrowness of his eyes, it’s obvious that he’s not. It’s a viewpoint that I wholeheartedly endorse.
20.
ELLA BRODEN
When Allison initially told me that she’d like to meet every Wednesday and Thursday, I assumed I must be in much worse psychological condition than I’d thought.
“No,” she assured me. “I just find that the work is really jump-started when you double up for the first little bit.”
I wasn’t sure if I believed her then, and I’m even less certain now. That’s because the “first little bit” has lasted six months so far, and there’s no end in sight. The last time I asked her if she thought we could go to one day a week was about a month ago. She said we could discuss the topic whenever I wanted, but her advice was to keep this schedule for “a little while longer.”
After I’d resigned myself to the fact that we’d be meeting two days a week for maybe forever, I asked her why we met on back-to-back days. It seemed to me I would have more to discuss if we met on a Monday and then a Friday, for instance.
“The work we do here,” she said, “is not about you telling me what’s happened in your day or week. Rather, we’re trying to dig down into your subconscious, which requires breaking down the various walls and other defense mechanisms you’ve established so you don’t let anyone—even yourself—go there. The reason I like to meet in close succession is because it’s the normal human reaction to begin to rebuild those walls right away. So the pattern is that we chip away at them here, and then you start rebuilding when you leave. If we meet the next day, the walls are still weak, so we can make much better progress.”
“Then why don’t we just meet for three hours on one day?”
“Because the chipping away, if you permit me to continue the metaphor, loses its effectiveness after a while. Think about the ax blade becoming too dull to continue the work. It gets sharpened overnight.”
Today I have a lot of wall breaking to do. In fact, I’m going to need a goddamn wrecking ball.
Allison shows me an off-kilter smile when she opens the door. I wonder if that’s because she already knows what I’m going to share. Although Lauren’s murder was a full-fledged media event, especially on cable news, I sometimes question how closely Allison pays attention to what I’m saying. I can’t be certain she even made the connection that the murdered ADA and the ex-boss I’ve talked about during the past six months are one and the same.
If she does know, Allison doesn’t raise the topic. Instead, after we’re seated, she begins the session as she always does: “How are you today?”
“Cursed,” I say.
She doesn’t recoil, which reveals that she listens to me more carefully than I’ve given her credit for. Still, she feels the need for me to provide the exposition because she says, “Tell me what you mean by that, Ella.”
“I’m assuming you know about Lauren Wright being murdered.”
“Yes. I read about it. I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you. So . . . what I’m saying is don’t get too close to me. You might end up on the murdered list too.”
Allison sniffles, the way you do when someone tells a joke that isn’t at all funny. “Is that how you feel?”
“No. I think that’s the undeniable reality. Whoever I love gets murdered. End of story.”
I know I’m laying it on thick, but I feel as if it’s my prerogative in a setting where I’m paying by the hour.
“I see,” she says, one of her prompts for me to elaborate.
“I know that the tragedy here belongs to Lauren and her family. It’s not about me. But . . . my sister was murdered six months ago, and now the woman I was closest to aside from Charlotte has been too. It’s not fair.”
“You’re right. It’s not fair,” Allison says in her soothing voice. “And I know it may feel as if it’s directed at you, but tragedies sometimes don’t space themselves out. I have many patients who’ve lost two loved ones in close succession.”
“Were your patients’ loved ones murdered?”
She smiles tautly at my challenge. “No. That’s . . . statistically speaking, very unlikely. I agree. But it still doesn’t mean you’re some meaningful common denominator in both deaths. That part is a coincidence.”
“Lucky me, I guess.”
When I leave Allison’s, I get on the number one train heading uptown. Even though it’s the local, I take it all the way to 155th Street, as I’m in no hurry to get to where I’m going.
I haven’t been to Charlotte’s gravesite since she was laid to rest. Given that I was just at a cemetery the other day, I’m not sure why I thought it would be beneficial to be here today. I just wanted to talk to my sister, I guess.
Everything about the grounds looks different than it did on that rainy day six months ago. Back then, I remember feeling an almost magnetic pull toward Charlotte’s open grave, but today I’m having difficulty even remembering the location of the burial plot.
I find it in the back of the cemetery. The placement seems so unfamiliar that I momentarily wonder if they’ve moved it. Ridiculous, of course.
I peer down at my mother’s tombstone, which stands beside my sister’s.
ANNE BRODEN
OCTOBER 24, 1953–MAY 9, 2004
DEVOTED WIFE AND MOTHER
I’ve always hated her epitaph, ever since my father first showed it to me, handwritten in his illegible scrawl on a yellow legal pad. I was twenty, a junior in college. He said, “I don’t know what to write. How’s this?” I said, “It’s fine,” because I couldn’t process anything at that point. Even today, I can’t. But I’m sorry that we defined my mother’s entire life by her relationship to us. The saddest part, however, is that I still don’t know what would have been more fitting.
My s
ister’s tombstone is the same size and shape as my mother’s. Side by side, they look like pillows atop a king-size bed.
CHARLOTTE BRODEN
AUGUST 8, 1995–JUNE 1, 2017
NEVER SAY GOODBYE BECAUSE GOODBYE MEANS GOING AWAY
AND GOING AWAY MEANS FORGETTING
I picked the quote. I scoured the Internet for potential quotes, and that one spoke to me. So much so that I also used it for my ode to Charlotte set to music. Reading it now, I feel a twinge of guilt that it’s no better than my mother’s. It’s still about us, not her. Maybe that’s the way it always is with death.
“Hi, Char-bar.” The cold air turns my breath to vapor. “Lucky you’re bundled up down there. It’s freezing up here.” I chuckle, then look around the cemetery nervously, worried someone will find my laughter inappropriate. No one else is around. Apparently harsh winter days are not optimal for visiting dead loved ones.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been here since the funeral. I know you don’t care. It’s not like we don’t talk all the time. I hope you’re with Mom. I bet she really missed you and is much happier now that you’re together. Not that she wanted you to die, of course. But . . . lemons into lemonade, amiright?”
And just like that, I start to cry. I was hoping to avoid a total meltdown, but once that dam breaks, I put up no resistance and let the tears run down my cheeks.
“I’m sorry, Char. I know that I’m the lucky one. I had you in my life and I get to have a life. I’m so sorry for you. God . . . the things you’re never going to experience. It’s so terrible. I wish you and Gabriel and I could go out to dinner. You’d like him. I mean, all girls like him. He’s gorgeous. But, you’d see what I see in him. He’s . . . a really good man. Can you believe that? There’s one out there. And he’s mine. The fact that he’s beautiful and smart and great in bed . . . I mean, what did I do to deserve that?”
21.
DANA GOODWIN
Despite the pileup of work on my desk, I’ve come home before Jacob’s bedtime. I know that in the next few days I’ll have to burn the midnight oil, but I feel the need to be with my son tonight.
