Wilde Lake: A Novel

by Laura Lippman

  There was an editorial in the Beacon, although it didn’t really seem to say much in the end, other than to appeal to all elected officials to uphold the standards for public decency. The real controversy was that our father had been steadfastly against the death penalty, which had only recently come back in to use in Maryland after a series of constitutional challenges. He said he would, of course, uphold the laws of the state, but he was personally opposed to capital punishment. Now here he was, seemingly contradicting himself, wishing a man dead because he had dared to appeal. An unfair interpretation of events, but his political rival was under no obligation to be fair. For the first time in his public life, my father’s gracious persona had cracked and he was not beloved.

  And he had not, as many realized, addressed the central argument of the man’s appeal, which was that there was a witness who would testify that she saw Sheila Compson get out of the man’s car near the highway, just as he had said all along. This was a serious charge. Detectives maintained that they had interviewed the witness and found her not credible. My father said he didn’t even know about her.

  And the witness was unreliable. She told a different story from the one she had told three years ago. Back then, she claimed she saw Sheila at the concert, did drugs with her in the bathroom. Now she was trying to say that she was at the rest area where the killer dropped her off, that they hitched the rest of the way together and Sheila Compson definitely had a rucksack. She said she lied before because she did not want her own parents to know that she hitched to the concert. Still, her story should have been made available under Brady, the Maryland precedent for prosecutors withholding evidence.

  But her story fell apart now, as it had fallen apart then. What about those other drivers who picked up Sheila Compson? They were adamant that she had no rucksack. And the new girl took detectives to the wrong rest area when asked to retrace her steps. She couldn’t even tell them what songs were played that night at the concert. The state’s attorney’s office is not obligated to make false statements part of the discovery process. The guilty man remained in prison for life, and my father, true to his principles, never pursued the death penalty in any capital case, even when that would have been the popular thing to do. He was thrilled when Maryland moved toward a de facto suspension of the death penalty, then vacated it entirely in May 2013. My father was a Quaker, in his own way, a religion he had embraced after leaving military service. But his interest in Quakerism extended only to the occasional—the very, very, very occasional—meeting at the Quaker society in North Baltimore. I don’t think he ever attended after the move to Columbia. He left AJ and me to make our own religious decisions, which is to say, we had no religion at all. And I was fine with that, and my children are fine with that now that I’ve abandoned Gabe’s plan to have them bar and bat mitzvahed. When Gabe died, I discovered that religion offered me no comfort, nor was it much use to the twins, so young at the time. When I started researching private schools in Howard County, I didn’t even realize that the one I chose had Quaker origins, but it pleased me when that was pointed out at my first visit.

  It also was pointed out to me that the school would allow me to have my children board there, when they reached the upper school. I worried that I had somehow transmitted a sense of desperation, of being over my head in those early years of widowhood and authentic single parenting. Don’t worry, we’ll take those kids off your hands when they’re teenagers. My father went to boarding school, but he never would have sent us. And I would never send my children away. When they were younger, only four or five, Justin asked if I would go to college with them. I said yes, and meant it. But I won’t hold them to that promise, much as I would like to.

  The oddest thing to me, about my job, this vocation to which I gave my life, is the ritual oath. Of course, they don’t make people put their hands on Bibles anymore, but they might as well, given that more than 80 percent of U.S. citizens identify as Christians. (These are the kind of stats you know when you’re in politics.) But I could put my hand on any book and tell you a thousand lies. So you will have to trust me when I tell you my story is true. I guess I could swear on my children’s lives—but that strikes me as distasteful. Sometimes, I think we hold the truth in too high an esteem. The truth is a tool, like a kitchen knife. You can use it for its purpose or you can use it—No, that’s not quite right. The truth is inert. It has no intrinsic power. Lies have all the power. Would you lie to save your child’s life? I would, in a heartbeat, no matter what object I was touching. Besides, what is the whole truth and nothing but the truth? The truth is not a finite commodity that can be contained within identifiable borders. The truth is messy, riotous, overrunning everything. You can never know the whole truth of anything.

  And if you could, you would wish you didn’t.

  JANUARY 17

  “So Fred is going to defend the guy and invoke Hicks? What could he be thinking?”

  AJ and Lu are at Petit Louis at the Lake, not far from where the beloved Magic Pan of their youth once sat. AJ probably would prefer to be at the Magic Pan right now, if it still existed. Her brother has come to hate restaurants with cloth napkins and wine lists. He also loathes the locavore places that would seem to embody the philosophy he espouses. Instead, he grumbles that they make food precious, another designer brand, only one to which poor people don’t aspire. He’s also not that keen on food trucks, for reasons that Lu can’t be bothered to remember. It’s hard keeping track of AJ’s ethics.

  But when AJ asked to take Lu to lunch to discuss “something confidential,” she couldn’t resist picking a restaurant she knew would annoy him. He’s taking her away from her Saturday afternoon with the twins, after all, the one carefree day on a weekly calendar that looks more like a battle plan, with babysitters ferrying Justin here, Penelope there.

  She can’t recall the last time her brother asked to be alone with her. Maybe never? Over the years, they were always good about staying in touch, no matter the distance between them. Their father implemented a weekly call during AJ’s college years, then encouraged Lu to choose Bryn Mawr because AJ had embarked on an MBA at Wharton. Nine years of education—four at Yale, three at Columbia, two at Wharton—and now he’s basically the world’s coolest, richest farmer. At least he’s wearing a shirt with a collar to their lunch. Not exactly Brooks Brothers—it’s a little sheer, with some hippy-dippy print—but it’s fine. For Columbia, on a Saturday afternoon. She wonders if her brother even owns ties anymore. Probably one tie, one suit, and one shirt, suitable for funerals and weddings. They have reached that age when the funerals begin to creep into people’s lives. The parents of friends, mostly, but older work colleagues and even the occasional peer.

  Then again, AJ and Lu had a big head start on death, first with their mother, then Noel. Almost thirty years after the fact, she still can’t believe he’s gone. For all the changes her father has made at the house, the kitchen window still faces the lilac bushes where they first saw Noel, spying on them. At night, when the window throws her own reflection back at her, she sometimes thinks it’s his eyes she’s seeing.

  As for death—there’s Gabe, too, of course. But that’s more like a nightmare from which she can never awaken. “Mrs. Swartz?” “Ms. Brant.” “But you are married to Gabriel Swartz?” “Yes.” Irritable—it was dinnertime, she had twin toddlers, it had been a long day. “He was found in his hotel room, not breathing.”

  To which she asked what seemed like the most logical question in the world. “But he’s started again, right? Breathing?”

  He had probably died almost twelve hours earlier. He missed a meeting, but those things happen, and no one had tried anything but his cell, which had gone unanswered. He was discovered by a housekeeper who assumed the room was empty.

  Lu says to her brother: “I’m sure Fred’s thinking he has a huge advantage—one case, no administrative duties—and that I can’t possibly keep up. But I will. I’m a better lawyer than he is. I proved that time and aga
in when I was his deputy.”

  She glances out at the lake. It is one of those January days that feels like a hangover. The holidays are past, her birthday is past, even her new job is losing its shiny-new luster despite the challenge of the Drysdale case. The Ravens, as of last weekend, are no longer in contention for the Super Bowl, not that she really cares. She often thinks that’s why the Super Bowl was invented—to give people a reason to party into February. The beer companies have been pretty effective at giving people reasons to drink at least once a month—Super Bowl, Mardi Gras, Cinco de Mayo, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Halloween. She’s surprised they haven’t figured out a way to make MLK’s birthday a bacchanal. Civil rights Jell-O shots for all! This Bud’s for you, Dr. King. She remembers when Penelope, age four, came home from school and began telling her there was a man, a very good man, who died too young and he would cry if he saw what life was like today.

  For a moment, Lu thought Penelope was talking about Gabe.

  “Maybe you should plead this one out, Lu. Take the air out of his tires.”

  “No.”

  “And here comes the famous Lu Brant chin action.”

  It is family lore that Lu, when stubborn, sets her jaw and sticks out her chin. “Bridle” is the correct term. It refers to a horse in bridle, the way the jaw extends when the bit is forced into the mouth. She has never heard the term used to refer to a man. Bridle. Bridal.

  Their food comes and she is delighted that AJ has chosen steak frites—it seems a victory over Lauranne—but mystified why he has yet to bring up the confidential matter that this lunch was supposed to feature. They’ve both had a glass of wine and a leisurely appetizer course—an eggplant Napoleon for Lu, a frisée salad with lardons for AJ. She wonders if Lauranne will be able to smell the meat on him when he comes home, then wonders if AJ cares.

  He dips a french fry in mayonnaise, sighs with pleasure. “These are perfect.”

  “Five Guys are almost as good. That’s where I usually go when I need a fix.”

  “There’s not one near me.”

  “There’s one in the Harbor and then one over in that neighborhood they’re now calling Brewers Hill. Also, just fifteen minutes down the parkway at Arundel Mills.”

  “Sounds like you’ve made quite a study of this. You need better vices, Lu.”

  She sips her wine, not at all flustered by the fleeting mental vision of her true vice, Bash. Compartmentalization is not a problem for Lu. Bash has a talent for it, too, despite that worrisome appearance at the open house over Christmas. If her fifty-three-year-old brother knew—well, what would he do? Take a swing at his old friend? AJ may be progressive in his politics, his ideas about climate change, and how to feed the planet, but when it comes to his sister, he’s stuck in retro big-brother mode. How silly.

  “How much longer are you going to stall?” she asks him now.

  “Stall?”

  “I thought you had something to discuss with me. Are you concerned about Dad?” The second she says that, she realizes that she is a little concerned. A line from Wordsworth comes to her: Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers. So much getting. So much spending. There’s a hint of mania to their father these past few years, and now she wonders if that means there was a depressive phase she missed. No one expects a man widowered at a young age to be the life of the party, but Lu has begun to suspect her father’s quiet, contained ways were part of something larger, sadder still.

  “Should I be? He seems pretty hale. And sharp as ever. If anything, I’m surprised by how little he changes, and I don’t see him day in, day out as you do, so I would be more prone to notice. No, I wanted to talk to you about, um, kids.”

  “Kids?”

  “Having them.”

  “Well, it all begins when two people love each other very much—”

  “No, seriously, Lu. I want to talk to you about surrogacy.”

  “Oh.” She looks into her lap, startled by how personal this feels.

  Penelope and Justin were born by gestational surrogacy, a concept that they still don’t quite grasp, although she tried to explain it to them on their last birthday. They are bewildered by the fact that the dead parent is the one to whom they are genetically connected, while the living one has no blood relation to them. They have met the woman who carried them, but have little information about the eggs that made them, which is because Lu has almost no information about those purchased ova. A doctor slapped some photos on a desk, accompanied by heartfelt, handwritten essays from women who were willing to “donate” their eggs. “I’ve chosen ones that look like you,” he said. “Why?” she asked. Lu tried not to be sentimental or defensive about her infertility. At the age of twenty-nine, she had to have a hysterectomy for fibroids. It was unfortunate, but it was what it was. What did the doctor think she was going to do, walk around for nine months with a series of larger and larger pillows under her lawyer clothes? She ignored the essays and chose the tallest one.

  “Lauranne’s still pretty young,” Lu says.

  “I’m not.”

  “So what?”

  “You’ve seen the articles, I’m sure. The suggestion that older sperm might be connected to all sorts of things, like autism.”

  “If it’s sperm you’re worried about, you don’t need a surrogate. A sperm bank will do nicely. And be a lot cheaper.”

  AJ can no longer meet her gaze. “Lauranne’s willing to be a mother. But she’s terrified of carrying a child.” His words start tumbling out, as if he can hear Lu’s unvoiced skepticism, her immediate inference that Lauranne doesn’t want to sacrifice her body to pregnancy. “She’s genuinely phobic about this. She knows herself well and while she understands that this should be the most natural thing in the world, she believes she’ll have problems. Being pregnant. That it will feel as if something alien has taken over her body. Especially if we’re not using my sperm. But we might be able to use her eggs.”

  “Maybe. But the odds of success will be much, much higher with donor eggs. So you’ll have donor eggs and donor sperm and a uterus on loan.”

  “You had two of the three.”

  “I’m not criticizing. Just thinking out loud. Seriously, AJ, if she doesn’t want to be pregnant, are you sure she wants to be a mother? Who initiated this?”

  “It was mutual.”

  “Like, one morning, you just both looked at each other and said, ‘Let’s have a kid!’ And then Lauranne says, ‘Only I don’t want to be pregnant!’ And you say, ‘And my sperm’s too old!’ What about adoption?”

  “Foreign adoption has gotten much more difficult than most people realize. And with the countries that are still open, I have ethical concerns. I don’t want to be accused of buying a baby. Meanwhile, here, most public agencies won’t accept us because of my age. Private adoption—I’m sorry, but that’s just a way for people with money to leverage their power.”

  “You know people will say the same thing about surrogacy. It’s getting more and more controversial. There are very real health risks for both the surrogates and the donors. There are people lobbying to ban it outright.”

  “Says the woman with eight-year-old twins born by surrogacy.”

  It’s as if AJ wants her to say the sanctimonious thing, to remind him of the hysterectomy. About which she does carry some resentment. At the time, her father and brother seemed cavalier in a way that she can’t imagine her mother would have been. Lu had no choice—with her fibroids, she would never be able to get pregnant—but it was a difficult thing to endure early in her marriage.

  Then again, few fathers or brothers would want to have long heart-to-hearts about a woman’s sexual organs. Her father didn’t even tell her the facts of life, delegating Teensy to do it when Lu was eleven and had already figured most of it out.

  “I’m sorry. I’m being lawyerly, outlining all the positions. It’s not often I get to advise you. I want you to know what you’re getting into. People can be cruel about it. And when they’re not
cruel, they’re ignorant, which is worse. Are those your kids? Do they look like their father because they sure don’t look like you?”

  “Did you ever regret having kids?”

  “No. Never. But I had moments, when they were very young, when I regretted the fact that my career had to take a hit. Maternity leave was not good for me. I stalled out in the city state’s attorney’s office. Then Fred moved to Howard County and became the boss, so I got a second chance. Even with money and all the child care I could hire, it took a toll. That won’t be a problem for you, though.”

  “Lu, I’m going to be a very hands-on father.”

  “Uh-huh.” Maybe he will be, this ridiculously rich man who has never known a single failure in his life, who can’t fail despite himself. Yes, maybe this man, raised in a household in which his widowered father did not know how to do a single domestic task, would be superdad. Lu owes him the benefit of the doubt. She guesses.

  “You’ll be tired. You can’t believe how tired you’ll be. And you’ll have to fight so hard for those bits of alone time that aren’t absolutely essential. Imagine being in the house on a fine spring night. The children are asleep. Finally. The air is soft and it carries the scent of whatever those blooming trees are. And Five Guys is still open at the mall! But you can’t go anywhere. Oh, wait—that’s my life. Without a partner. You’ll have Lauranne.”

  “You have Dad, Lu.”

  “Would you leave Dad in charge of young children?”

  “He’s fine, I’m telling you. Really, have you seen any evidence that his memory or intellect is diminished?”