Hush Hush

by Lippman, Laura

  The next thing she knew, someone was shaking her shoulder. Jesus, she had fallen asleep. This chair was really comfortable.

  Ethan Hinerman, bigger and shaggier than he had appeared on Tess’s laptop, was at the stage of life where his beard was outpacing his hair. The beard was thick and almost entirely red, while the hair on his head was thinning and running to more of a mousy brown with gray at the temples. He wore what Tess thought of as hyper-stylized preppy garb—a bright green-and-white-checked shirt, a bow tie, a brown tweed jacket with elbow patches. Old Baltimore. As opposed to the Full Towson, which was white belts and white shoes.

  “Tess Monaghan?” he asked. “Don’t worry, you’re not the first person to fall asleep here.”

  “Are therapists’ waiting rooms supposed to be so comfortable?”

  “I don’t know about other therapists. I want people who come to see me to associate our time together with good things, pleasant things. Because, in the end, it should be positive.”

  “Yeah, well—” Tess wasn’t about to confide that her only time in a therapist’s office had been court-ordered. “Given the parking situation in this neighborhood, that’s a good idea. I had to park over on Hamilton. I don’t understand why there are so many cars when there seem to be fewer and fewer people.”

  “I’ve wondered that myself,” he said, leading her into his office. This room was even more beautiful, with another fireplace, although no fire. “I’ve been here for twenty-five years. When I first started working here, I could walk to Louie’s Bookstore for lunch or get takeout from Sascha’s. I’m such a Baltimorean that I still think of Donna’s as being the new place—and the Mount Vernon location closed years ago. I think I used to see you in the bar at the Brass Elephant. Ah, well, I can still walk to the library. And Iggies pizza.”

  “I love Iggies,” Tess said, still trying to find her equilibrium. It was humiliating, being awakened by someone she was interviewing. But maybe it would lower his guard. “So—Melisandre Dawes.”

  “She still uses that name?”

  “She prefers the full handle, Melisandre Harris Dawes, but yes. She still uses her ex-husband’s name. I understand you were his friend, go all the way back to Gilman with him.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t really have a relationship with Melisandre.”

  “And why did you assume I was going to ask that?”

  “Because—well—you work for her, right? Work for her lawyer. And this is clearly about her trial—”

  His fumbled words helped her recover, find her footing in the conversation.

  “I’m here because Melisandre suggested I speak to you.”

  “Why?”

  “I haven’t a clue. She told me to watch the interview you taped for the documentary. I did. Seemed pretty ordinary to me.”

  “Oh, that. Yes, I agreed to speak for the record. As a favor to Stephen.”

  “A favor to him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet you say in the interview that you’re not close anymore?”

  “Did I?”

  “Your exact words were, I believe, ‘literally and figuratively.’ Full props for using those terms correctly. Go, Gilman.”

  “Well, thank you. I guess.” She had thrown him off his stride. Gilman boys were allowed a certain mock humility, but others were supposed to be awed by their alma mater. “Yes, Stephen remarried and moved to the suburbs. He’s in a different phase of his life. Was. I still can’t quite believe he’s gone.”

  “What did you think of him marrying someone younger?”

  “I thought it was his business. And that he should get a prenup. Not that he asked me.”

  “Because you no longer spoke?”

  “You make it sound as if there were a feud. It was nothing like that.”

  “No, Melisandre made it sound as if there were a feud. She’s the one who suggested I speak to you, after all. Based on the video. Man, she must have been furious with you back then. When you testified against her.”

  “No, not really.”

  “No?”

  “Melisandre understood why I felt I had to testify. That it wasn’t malicious or perjury. Just an error.”

  “Are you familiar with the Andrea Yates case? She went to trial several months before Melisandre did. The woman who killed all five of her children?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “You know what’s really interesting? She got a mistrial, too, the first time around.”

  “Really?”

  “The state’s expert witness, a psychiatrist, testified that there had been a Law & Order episode in which a woman used postpartum psychosis to disguise a homicide. But there was no such episode. In Yates’s case, the evidence didn’t come out until after the trial and she won a new trial three years later, in 2005. In Melisandre’s case you testify Thursday, and, boom, her attorney has the goods to contradict you on Friday. Mistrial on Monday.”

  “Was that the timing? I think I testified on a Wednesday?”

  “Oh, so you think that’s what matters? The calendar?”

  “Well, speaking of the calendar—if you’re trying to link the two things, that makes no sense. Melisandre’s trial was in 2003. You said the Yates conviction was thrown out on appeal in 2005.”

  “But it came to light before the sentencing phase in Yates’s trial in 2002. The mistrial was requested then.”

  “Then I guess Melisandre’s lawyer had followed the Yates trial closely.”

  “Okay, let me see if I understand what you’re saying: Melisandre’s lawyer follows the Yates case closely. Sure, that makes sense. So when a psychiatrist—”

  “I’m a family therapist. And I testified as a friend of the family, not an expert witness.”

  “So when a therapist—excuse me, a family friend, although you said you weren’t really Melisandre’s friend—when the husband’s friend testifies that he saw this folder of newspaper clippings, Melisandre’s lawyer immediately finds it suspect, does the research, and contradicts the witness in cross the next day.”

  “It was a famous incident, the one I described. Melisandre’s lawyer was the mother of two small children, a harried professional not unlike the woman in the article. She remembered it well.”

  “Huh. Wow. Well, lucky for Melisandre, right, that you went into all that detail about the one case? Or was she the one who got lucky? I mean, you were Stephen’s friend, not hers. But she was the one who benefited from your testimony. Or was she?”

  “I’m not sure, I can’t—Look, it was a mistake. An honest mistake. I didn’t commit perjury.”

  “Yeah, I’d say that, too, because there’s no statute of limitations on perjury in a criminal trial in Maryland.” Tess was only 75 percent sure of this information. It didn’t matter. What mattered was what Hinerman said next.

  “Yes, I know.”

  Bingo. “Why?”

  “Well, because, because it came up in some other context. With a client.”

  She nodded and smiled at him in the fakest way possible. “I’m sure it did. Anyway, false statement, mistrial requested, mistrial granted. I guess Baltimore judges are a little more liberal than Texas ones, and a folder of newspaper clippings is worse than just saying a TV show aired. Shows more intent, planning. If such a folder ever existed.”

  “It did. I mean—I was told—” He was smart enough to correct himself in midsentence. “I saw it.”

  “You were told that it existed.” Tess tried to assume the comforting, confiding pose that came so naturally to Hinerman. “Hey, I know you can’t undo what was done. But being truthful now counts for a lot. I’ll protect you to the extent that we can. Just tell the truth.”

  Hinerman sighed and tented his hands, speaking more to his fingers than to Tess. “Stephen told me about the folder, said he couldn’t bear to be the one who testified about it. He told me he had been so upset that he had thrown it away, but he briefed me on what was in it. Article after article about women harming their children, under all sorts of cir
cumstances. He said I could call the prosecutor, say I had just remembered it. It was for his daughters, you see? He couldn’t bear to be the one who offered the testimony against their mother. That’s what he said and I believed him. I gave the testimony. And the next day, I was sandbagged. I had no idea that the dates were wrong. I had trusted Stephen’s memory.”

  “Is that why your friendship with Stephen fell apart?”

  “No, not then. I assumed it was an honest mistake on his part. It was only later—really, only a few years ago—that I realized why Stephen needed me to testify, why he set me up. Alanna was on the witness list. Alanna was going to testify.”

  They said that last time. Tess saw Alanna, standing in the doorway. Now she understood.

  “And he wanted to spare her that?”

  “He wanted to spare himself. Alanna had seen him having sex with the nanny. Then told her mother. Stephen didn’t want that to come out. Not his image, you know? He’d rather suppress relevant information about his wife’s intent than let the world know that he cheated on her. But I didn’t figure that out until a few years ago.”

  “How?”

  “In my experience, a lie can be like a tiny seed lodged in a tooth. You can’t see it, you barely feel it, but there’s always this sense that something’s off, that the pieces don’t fit. And then one day, it falls out and you think, Oh, that was it. Around the time when Stephen decided to remarry, I counseled him to get a prenup with Felicia. He was offended, but I was just trying to look after Alanna’s and Ruby’s interests. He said something about how this was real love, not like the other times, and I thought, What other times? He could have been referring to his dating life, but he hadn’t been serious about anyone since his marriage ended. Then I realized there must have been someone during the marriage, maybe several someones. I asked him point-blank, and he admitted it. He denied that he had set me up at the trial, but I knew. I knew. It was so obvious all of a sudden. How could Stephen have confused that sequence of events?”

  “So you’re pretty angry with your old friend.”

  “Disappointed, I think, is the better word. I don’t blame him for having an affair. But his cowardice, his willingness to manipulate a trial for his benefit, with no interest in what the truth of the matter was—I found that sad. He pulled every string he had for Melisandre’s retrial—wrote a letter on her behalf to the judge, paid for the experts who supported the diagnosis of postpartum psychosis.”

  “You know I have to ask where you were Friday night.”

  “At a very boring professional dinner at the Sheraton in Towson, one where I was in full view for the evening. I gave the keynote.”

  “Sorry.” Tess gave him a lopsided smile. “Just doing my job. It’s interesting, what you’ve told me, but I can’t decide if it’s helpful. I mean, if Stephen set you up as you suspect, that was good for Melisandre, right? As you said, Alanna’s testimony would have created the case for intent, a revenge killing of a sort. Could he have been so coldhearted that he would have let his wife slide on homicide just to keep his reputation intact?”

  “I don’t know. At one time, I would have told you that Stephen was incapable of that kind of deviousness. But, at one time, I would have told you that Stephen would never expose his oldest friend to a perjury charge. Maybe he rationalized that it was okay, as long as he was going to have full custody of the children. Maybe he told himself it was in their best interest. Miss Monaghan—”

  “Um, Ms. But Tess is fine.”

  “There’s one more thing I should probably tell you.”

  In Tess’s experience, one more thing was usually the most boring, irrelevant thing in the world. But she brightened with what she hoped was plausible enthusiasm.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m not the only person who figured this out. Alanna did, too.”

  “When?” Not last week, not last week, not last week.

  “She came to see me Thursday—”

  Tess lost a few words then to the part of her brain screaming, Oh, Jesus fucking Christ.

  “She came here, to the office. She asked me point-blank about the mistrial.”

  “But who told her? Or did she figure it out like you did?”

  “Stephen had told her that Melisandre had ‘sold’ the girls to him after she was acquitted, taken a lump sum and agreed to leave, never see them again. But Alanna saw how he benefited. She believes the real story is that he paid her mother never to speak of the affair.”

  “Was she angry?”

  “More sad, I would say. She kept asking me, ‘How could they do it?’”

  “Do what?”

  “Put her in that position, at such a young age. I told her that her father was thinking of her, too, that it was better that she never testified. What if her mother had been found guilty? How would a five-year-old make sense of it? Whatever her father’s motives, it was for the best.”

  “Did she believe you?”

  A sad smile. “No.”

  *

  Tess went back outside. She’d have to tell Tyner eventually, sooner than eventually, but she didn’t have the heart for such a conversation today. She rounded the corner onto the tiny, secret lane of Hamilton where she had parked. There was a piece of paper on her windshield. Fuck. Again? She was almost relieved to find a ticket, even though she knew she had put enough money in the meter. The meter had shortchanged her. She could contest the ticket, ask for a trial, but that would mean trading a half day of her time to fight a thirty-two-dollar fine. Hard not to think the city had figured that out.

  God, she hated the new meters. But a thirty-two-dollar fine was better than being called a crap mother by a stranger. Assuming the person was a stranger. In her darkest moments, Tess feared it was someone who knew her all too well.

  4:00 P.M.

  Harmony’s phone issued a single bell-like tone, the sound she used for signal alerts and push functions. She glanced at the display while continuing to pack. A file had landed from the transcription company. So what? The project was dead, as dead as—But that was in bad taste. She couldn’t be angry at Stephen Dawes for being dead. And having watched Melisandre’s interview with him, Harmony was pretty sure that Melisandre hadn’t killed him. The “interview” had been useless, way too short. It was also about as dispassionate as anything Harmony had ever seen. For exes, those two had zero chemistry. Harmony should have taken a firmer stand on Melisandre’s participation. It was one thing for her to conduct that interview with her lawyer. Strange and uncomfortable as that footage was, it wasn’t central to the film. Sure, it established that she had gone to see him before driving to the boathouse, but it also had established a pattern—Melisandre had left baby Isadora in the car at every stop that morning. At the school, outside Tyner’s office, in the boathouse parking lot. Who cared what Carolyn Sanders thought she saw? That was all hindsight, a self-involved young woman’s attempt to heighten her connection to something big, and thereby make herself more important. Melisandre had been disturbed enough to leave a sleeping child in the car everywhere she went that day. It hadn’t mattered at the school, where she was parked briefly, or at Tyner’s office, where she evidently used a garage. But there was a consistency in her strange behavior. And, in this case, the consistency established her insanity. A woman intent on homicide via neglect, then faking insanity—that woman probably would have had the child with her on those two previous visits. She wouldn’t have risked a concerned citizen busting her before she could execute her plan.

  But it didn’t matter what Harmony thought. It never had, really. Since Melisandre had been charged with homicide, the cable vultures were circling. They both agreed there was no room for the kind of project they had planned over tea in a London hotel suite. Harmony had tendered her resignation yesterday, over the phone.

  Melisandre had made a perfunctory attempt to dissuade her, even pretended that they might resume the film. “Once this is over,” she said, although it sounded like false bravado to Harmony’s ear. �
�Meanwhile, what do I do, with the files, everything that Tyner’s little friend gathered up?”

  “Whatever you want, Melisandre. The material is yours. You paid for it. You paid for me, too, but I was just a loaner.”

  If anything was over, it was Harmony’s comeback. Back to Inwood, back to waitressing until she could find a gig. Maybe she would start looking for a job in reality television.

  And yet—the notification from the transcription app lured her back to her new laptop. She perched on the bed, clicked on the Dropbox icon, began watching the unedited footage again. This could have been something special.

  Harmony had been surprised by Tess Monaghan’s naïveté. She didn’t expect Tyner Gray to be particularly tech savvy. An unfair stereotype of an older man, perhaps, but a true one in her experience. Even Melisandre had interesting gaps in her skill set, a consequence, Harmony had assumed, of having too many people doing things for her over the years. Melisandre could be flummoxed by a digital thermostat. She had actually called Tyner and asked him to explain how to work the one in her apartment.

  But Tess wasn’t that much older than Harmony. Besides, Harmony had essentially told Tess that everything that had been recorded on various devices was also in the so-called cloud. Tess had to know that Dropbox would be accessible to Harmony on any computer, that it would be there when she got a new phone and accessed her account. Physical possession meant nothing in the digital age.