The Girl From Home

by Adam Mitzner

  “They said that I could face the death penalty. Is that right?”

  Mark cocks his head to the side. “It probably won’t be a capital case. Most of the time, spousal homicides, even when they’re murders-for-hire, are charged as state crimes, and New Jersey abolished the death penalty about five, ten years ago. But, yes, to answer your question, they could charge it as a federal murder-for-hire and ask for the death penalty.”

  Jackie feels as if she’s going to pass out. That, or throw up.

  “When will we know?”

  “Unfortunately not until—and if—you’re arrested. If FBI agents do it, it’s federal. If it’s East Carlisle cops, it’s state. Even if it goes federal, they may not charge it as a capital offense. There are a lot of factors that go into it and the decision to seek the death penalty ultimately needs to be approved by the US Attorney General.”

  Jackie doesn’t find this comforting. In fact, she’s lost in the despair that a cabinet-level official will actually be tasked with deciding whether she’s put to death.

  “Which brings me back to the initial point,” Mark says. “The best way for you to protect yourself is to seek a deal in exchange for testimony against Jonathan. Is that something you’re willing to do?”

  “No,” Jackie says flatly, as if that’s all the response the question required.

  “Can I ask you why not?”

  “Because Jonathan had nothing to do with killing Rick.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I hired that guy to kill Rick.”

  There, she said it. Told her lawyer the God’s honest truth. She wonders how many people admit they’re murderers to their lawyers, especially during the initial meeting. Does Mark Gershien respect her candor? Or is he repulsed by the sight of her?

  “Okay,” Mark says after a long pause. “I’m not going to lie to you, that limits our options. Does Jonathan know it was you?”

  “Yes.”

  Jackie’s admission is met with a scowl. It’s as if her lawyer is more troubled that she confided in Jonathan than that she’s a murderer.

  “How much does he know?”

  “Everything.”

  “What about details? Does he know . . . how you made the payments or communicated with the hit man?”

  “Yes. I told him everything.”

  Mark’s concern is now undeniable. He’s holding his hand over his mouth, as if he’s physically trying to hold in his response.

  “I hate to say this, Jackie, but Jonathan is far and away the greatest danger to you. All he needs to do is tell the police you confessed to him, and then corroborate that confession with some of the particulars of the crime, and they’re going to give him immunity in exchange for his testifying against you.”

  “He’s not going to do that,” Jackie says.

  As the words come out, Jackie hears how silly she sounds. The cold reality is that she’s known Jonathan for all of a month. She can’t believe it’s been that short, but the calendar doesn’t lie. And if she considers Jonathan with even a modicum of objectivity, she knows he’s a man who possesses a finely honed self-preservation instinct.

  34

  When they leave the lawyers, Jackie suggests they take advantage of being away from East Carlisle and try to enjoy a nice dinner. Jonathan’s experience over the last few hours has eliminated his appetite, but Jackie insists (making it clear that she’s picking up the check), and Jonathan ultimately suggests a French restaurant in Tribeca that’s about a ten-minute walk.

  Jonathan is initially concerned that they won’t be seated without a reservation, but the model-beautiful hostess tells them to follow her, and they are placed at a table in the front of the house. The space has been renovated since the last time Jonathan dined here, and now the room has an open floor plan, with murals of romantic images on the walls. Flowers are everywhere, and the waitstaff move around as if they’re on roller skates.

  “So . . . what did Alex say to you?” Jackie asks once they each have a glass of white wine.

  “Nothing I didn’t already know,” Jonathan answers. “This is a serious charge. The police are going to be able to prove our affair. That type of thing. Why, what did your mouthpiece say?”

  Without missing a beat she says, “He told me to make a deal and save myself by telling the police you killed Rick.” Then she offers him that classic Jackie smile.

  Jonathan’s been caught in a lie of omission. Jackie must know that Alex made the same appeal as her lawyer: save yourself by cooperating. The only difference is that Jackie admitted it, and Jonathan hasn’t.

  “I hope you didn’t agree to that,” Jonathan says, trying to match her smile, but certain that he’s fallen far short.

  “I told him that I’d think about it. And then I asked some questions about whether they’d allow us conjugal visits. You know, once you’re in jail, after I turn on you.”

  Jackie laughs. “Jesus, Jonathan, you look like you’re afraid that I’d actually do that. But no such luck, I’m with you until the very end.”

  How much does Jonathan want to believe it’s true? That he and Jackie are in this together.

  “Jonathan?”

  Jonathan is momentarily startled by the sound of his name, which has come from behind him. He turns around to see Natasha.

  As always, she looks stunning. She’s wearing a low-cut black dress and a diamond necklace that Jonathan knows he didn’t give her. But that’s not the accessory that’s caught his eye. It’s the man holding her hand: Harrison Kaye. Apparently, their former Hamptons real estate broker isn’t gay after all.

  Now it makes sense how Natasha’s been able to stay in the co-op without any income with which to pay the mortgage and maintenance.

  “Natasha,” Jonathan says, her name coming out like a question. He stands and kisses her on the cheek. “Um, this is Jacqueline Williams. We went to high school together.”

  He watches Natasha’s eyes go up and down Jackie’s body. Jackie offers her hand, and Natasha appears reluctant to shake it, as if Jackie’s about to pass on some contagious disease—being in love with Jonathan Caine—and having rid herself of that malady, Natasha wants nothing to do with it ever again.

  Natasha finally takes Jackie’s hand, and when she does, she immediately turns back to Jonathan and says, “You remember Harrison Kaye, don’t you?”

  Harrison has no similar hesitation about shaking hands. “Nice to see you again, Jonathan,” he says.

  Harrison’s grip tightens around Jonathan’s hand, but Jonathan has no interest in a dick-measuring contest. He couldn’t care less who shares Natasha’s bed these days.

  “How have you been, Jonathan?” Natasha asks, her eyes still on Jackie.

  He considers how to reply. Certainly not with the truth. Remember when I was most worried about being homeless and convicted for securities fraud? Well, things have gotten a lot hairier since then.

  “Up and down, I guess is the honest answer,” he says. “My father died a week or so ago.”

  He had thought about calling Natasha after the funeral, but decided against it. With each passing day, his life with Natasha seemed like it had happened to someone else, and he had no desire to revisit it.

  “I’m sorry,” she says.

  It sounds as perfunctory as the condolences made by the people at Lakeview, who barely knew his father. Natasha was his daughter-in-law for three years, for chrissakes. Natasha, too, has seemingly left her old life behind without regret.

  “Thank you. And how have you been?” he asks, solely to be polite.

  “Very well,” Natasha says in a businesslike tone. “Harrison’s now working the New York City market as well as the Hamptons, so I’m splitting my time between both.”

  There’s an awkward silence, the small talk having run its course. “Well, you two enjoy your dinner,” Jonathan says.

  “So that was the famous Natasha,” Jackie says after Natasha and Harrison have left them.

  “The one and o
nly.”

  “She seems to have landed on her feet. Nothing like finding a partner to pick up the slack, right?”

  Jonathan feels as if the comment is directed at him as much as it is about Natasha. He wishes he knew Jackie’s tells better. If he did, he might be able to discern whether she’s made the point to remind him that he has a lot to lose if she goes to jail.

  35

  Jonathan has an uneasy sleep. Alone in his childhood bed, he can’t stop the endless loop playing in his head. Jackie giving him up to the police, Natasha laughing at what a sap he turned out to be in the end, the clank of a jail cell locking as he yells out protestations of innocence.

  The flashing colors wake him. Jonathan knows almost immediately that they’re police lights, even if he can’t hear any sirens. At first he thinks it’s part of a dream, but as his head clears he knows the truth. It’s all too real.

  When the police came the last time, it was in a single, unmarked car. The unmarked car has returned, but the addition of a police cruiser must mean that they’re not here just to talk.

  They’ve come to arrest him.

  Jonathan’s phone is on his night table. He thinks first about calling Jackie, but decides better of it. For all he knows, she’s the reason the cops are here.

  It’s too early to call Alex Miller, so he texts his lawyer.

  Being arrested in EC. Help!

  By now the knocking on the door is growing louder. “Police. Open up.”

  Jonathan quickly realizes that if he doesn’t answer the door, the police are going to kick it in. So he throws on his father’s robe and heads downstairs to face the music.

  * * *

  Jackie hadn’t been able to sleep. All night her mind raced with the parade of horribles she saw as her future: being strapped down about to receive a lethal injection, or alone in a jail cell.

  After her kids leave for school, she decides to try to burn off her anxious energy by going for a run. She jogs what she considers her shorter route, a four-mile loop through her neighborhood, which is referred to as the Revolution section due to the fact that the streets are so named thematically. Her run takes her down Constitution, up Bunker Hill, through a long stretch of Washington, and concludes at the dead-end part of Yorktown. From there she walks back the half mile during her cooldown phase.

  She first sees the lights flashing in her driveway as she makes the turn back on Redcoat. She thinks about turning around but knows that would be pointless. They’ve already spotted her. When she reaches her driveway, she sees Detective Martin standing beside his car. Without saying good morning, he tells Jackie that she’s under arrest for the murder of Richard Williams.

  * * *

  The police cruiser pulls up to the back entrance of the station. On the door is a green sign with white lettering: POLICE PERSONNEL ONLY. When the doors open, Jonathan is pulled past three cells. None of them is occupied, but Jonathan assumes he’s going to see the inside soon enough.

  The police allowed Jonathan to change out of his pajamas, so for his perp walk into the East Carlisle Police Department, he’s attired in the same ensemble he donned for the reunion: Brioni suit, white shirt, Gucci loafers. As a result, he looks far more like a lawyer than a defendant.

  Jonathan searches about for some glimpse of Jackie, but she’s nowhere to be found. He again wonders whether she’s already given him up. Could it be that it was her statement that he killed Rick that prompted his arrest? That she’s snuggled softly in her bed while he faces punishment for a murder she committed?

  The cops put him in an interrogation room that’s much smaller than the ones he’s seen on television. A small metal table is pushed against one wall and three metal chairs surround it. There isn’t a one-way mirror, but Jonathan sees a video camera hanging from the corner of the room.

  The uniformed cop who read him his rights in the squad car removes Jonathan’s handcuffs. He can’t be any older than twenty-five. The kind of kid Jonathan terrorized on the trading floor in his former life.

  “You’re going to be here for a little while,” the cop says. “So you should make yourself comfortable. The door’s locked from the outside, FYI.”

  Jonathan was relieved of his phone upon entry, so he has no idea of the amount of time that’s elapsed, but it seems like he’s already been incarcerated for at least an hour. He’s tried to stay focused on the fact that this part will be over soon, even though he knows that what awaits him is even more distressing.

  When the door finally opens, two men enter the room. Jonathan recognizes them from the visit they paid him two days earlier. He can’t recall the younger cop’s name, but he remembers the mustache is McGeorge.

  “Mr. Caine, as you may remember, my name is Detective McGeorge, and my partner is Detective Swensen.”

  “Yes, of course,” Jonathan says.

  Detective McGeorge takes a seat beside Jonathan. He taps the metal table twice with the wedding band on his finger, as if it’s a gavel and he’s calling the meeting to order.

  “Well, we have ourselves a bit of a situation here,” Detective McGeorge says with a heavy voice. “We’ve spoken to the Acting DA, and based on the evidence we’ve already collected, she’d like to try you and Mrs. Williams together, as co-conspirators in her husband’s murder. I can’t say that I blame her for going that way. What went down here, it’s pretty cold-blooded, if you ask me. And I’ll tell you another thing. We’ve arrested this guy Ariel Kishon.” Detective McGeorge mispronounces the name—making it sound like the Disney mermaid—but Jonathan assumes that the proper pronunciation is R-E-L, like the former Israeli Defense Minister, Ariel Sharon. “He’s a smart guy, for a hit man, I mean. Smart enough to be cooperating with us as much as he can to save his own ass. He’s already signed a confession admitting that he ran down Rick Williams. Also admitted he was paid ten grand to do it. Whatever we want, he’s giving us. But some guys have all the luck, and you, my friend, must have been born under a lucky star, because Kishon can’t tell us who hired him, you or your girlfriend. Not yet, anyway. And that means you got a chance to help yourself, although that window will close real fast. So my advice to you is that you tell us what happened here and do it right now.”

  Detective McGeorge stops short, undoubtedly hoping that Jonathan will blurt out a confession. Jonathan stays mute.

  “Look, you seem like a really smart guy, Mr. Caine,” Detective McGeorge says. “So I assume that you’re very familiar with the concept of supply and demand. The way it works here is that the first one who tells us what happened gets a deal. The other one gets to die in prison. Question for you is: Which one do you want to be?”

  Jonathan anticipated something along the lines of Detective McGeorge’s little monologue, although truth be told, not quite so over-the-top. Jonathan’s one and only takeaway from it is that Jackie hasn’t turned. At least, not yet. She must have been arrested, too, and is being held somewhere else.

  Detective McGeorge stares hard at Jonathan, as if his gaze alone can force Jonathan to confess. Jonathan has been stared down before, so he finds it’s rather easy to stare right back.

  “You like movies, Mr. Caine?” Detective McGeorge finally says, breaking into a smile.

  Jonathan decides there can’t be any harm in admitting that. “Sure. Who doesn’t?”

  “You remember a movie . . . God, I’m old, because it came out a long time ago. It was called Body Heat? Young Kathleen Turner. Back when she was hot? Man. And the guy . . . John Hurt.”

  “William,” Jonathan says.

  “What?”

  “The guy in Body Heat. It was William Hurt. John Hurt was the Elephant Man.”

  Detective McGeorge chuckles. Looking at his partner, he says, “What do you know? This guy really does like movies.” Then, turning back to Jonathan: “Okay, so William Hurt plays this lawyer, and Kathleen Turner, she gets him to kill her husband. The poor schmuck thinks that they’re going to live happily ever after, but she double-crosses him. He ends up rotting i
n jail, and if I remember correctly, the movie ends with her on a beach somewhere sipping a drink with one of those little umbrellas in it.”

  “That could very well be the play here,” Detective Swensen chimes in. “In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if your girlfriend is spinning it that way. We already know her husband beat her, and so no one could blame her for wanting him dead. And honestly, no one would blame you one bit if she got you to do it. If that’s what happened . . . well, the weight of it falls on her and not you. And it really wouldn’t even be so bad for her. I mean, spousal abuse is a great defense. All that post-traumatic-stress stuff. Juries eat that shit up. The important thing is that you not let her play you for a chump. If she killed her sack-of-shit of a husband, there’s no reason for you to rot in jail for it like that guy in the movie. Am I right?”

  After his partner’s speech, Detective McGeorge looks at Jonathan hopefully, as if they might go out for a beer as soon as Jonathan explains that yes, he did indeed murder Rick Williams because Jackie asked him to. If this is police interrogation at its finest, Jonathan can’t believe that anybody ever confesses to anything.

  “I’d like to call my lawyer,” Jonathan says.

  And poof, Detective McGeorge’s smile is now a million miles away. He looks as if he’d like nothing more than to beat the crap out of Jonathan.

  “I’m so happy you said that. I really am,” he says.

  His expression belies the words. The last thing Detective McGeorge looks to be is happy.

  Detective McGeorge slowly rises. Once he’s upright, he leans over until his face is right against Jonathan’s, as if they’re an umpire and a manager arguing over a called third strike. Jonathan can smell the reek of coffee breath.

  “I saw your girlfriend when she came in,” Detective McGeorge continues, “and I was thinking to myself, I hope he’s stupid enough to ask for a lawyer because that’ll mean he’s going to go down for this. Your girlfriend, she didn’t strike me as the murdering type. But you? Oh, I’m betting you pushed her into it. You see, I was a little worried that you’d be the one to cut the deal with us, but it looks like it’s going to end up just like it should. She’s gonna turn on you, and be out soon, and you’ll be bending over daily while some fucking animal in Rahway makes you his bitch.”