“And your brothers?” Liana asked, unable to refrain from the follow-up question.
“I’m sure they’ll be in to see me; they live out of town, and it isn’t that easy to just drop everything.” Deb sounded disappointed, and Liana hoped that the brothers got their act together on the double.
“So you had to have this surgery right away? You didn’t get a second opinion?” Liana regretted the question as soon as it left her mouth, but after years of living with a parent with a chronic illness, second opinions were just part of the landscape. She couldn’t imagine doing anything serious to her body without at least two white coats telling her it was the only way to go.
“No,” Deb said. She didn’t sound offended, just controlled, as if she were a newscaster reading a tragic story from a teleprompter and trying to inspire confidence. “This is the best hospital in the city for this”—avoiding the word cancer—“I didn’t see any point in prolonging things; I just wanted all of this stuff out,” she said, motioning to the lower half of her body as though she were shooing away a pesky fly.
“How’s Max? Where is he?” Everything Liana said was coming out wrong. Obviously Deb would have made plans for Max, and it would only make her feel worse to have Liana ask, as though maybe he had been left home, locked in his bedroom, until her return.
“He’s with his father,” Deb said simply. “I’m relieved that I don’t have to worry about those logistics, for now.” The implication that she would have to make arrangements for Max sometime in the future was too painful to bear, and Liana was grateful it was left unsaid. Deb was getting sleepy, her body rebelling against much more interaction. She put her head back and closed her eyes. Liana sat with her quietly, holding her hand lightly, wondering whether she should leave.
Liana had only a few more minutes to spend with Deb before Staff Sergeant Joanie returned, and she was trying to come up with something reassuring to say when Deb abruptly opened her eyes and asked, “So why are you going to see him?” Caught off guard, Liana had no idea what Deb was talking about.
“I’m sorry?” Liana said.
“Why are you going to Green Haven to see Danny Shea?” Deb asked. “Gerry was trying to distract me, and he told me something about a risk you need to discuss with Shea in person—what the hell kind of risk could there possibly be in that case?” Deb asked.
Liana was amazed at Deb’s clarity after what she had been through, not to mention her interest in something as peripheral to her life as Liana’s appeal. Liana thought if she were direly ill, about the last thing she would think about was her clients or anyone else’s. But Deb was different—she had no instinct for self-pity, even when it was well deserved, and she did not suffer fools. If she had something on her mind, she would not be deterred, cancer or no cancer, and Liana couldn’t bring herself to lie to her.
“There’s no risk,” she said quietly, unable to look Deb in the eye.
“Then why are you going?” Deb repeated, more insistently. When Liana didn’t answer, Deb’s eyes widened, and with a great effort, she hoisted herself up on her elbows so she could face Liana squarely.
“Oh my God!” she squealed, delighted. “You have a crush on your rapist!”
“Shh, Shh!” Liana motioned Deb to lie down before the nurse came running in. “I don’t have a crush on him, and I would appreciate it if you didn’t call him ‘my rapist,’” she said, with as much indignation as she could marshal.
“Why shouldn’t I call him that?” Deb asked, perplexed. “Isn’t that who we are talking about—that guy I unloaded on you? I’ve had a lot of anesthesia. Am I mixing him up with another one of your clients?”
“No, you know exactly who we’re talking about,” Liana said. “I’m going to see him because I’m curious to see what he has to say, what he’s like in person—whether he has an innocent air to him,” she stammered. Liana thought Deb might burst a blood vessel she was laughing so hard.
“Oh, so all of a sudden you think one of our clients is wrongly convicted? And it just happens to be the best looking, most charming, most articulate guy anyone in the history of the Public Defender’s Office has ever represented? You’re pathetic, Liana. You know that, right?”
“Yes,” Liana admitted, looking at her feet. “You’re not going to tell Gerry, are you?”
“No, Liana. I’m not going to report you to the authorities. Just don’t do anything stupid or beneath you.” She motioned for Liana to pour some water into a little Dixie cup on her tray table, took a few sips, and continued.
“Look—I don’t know—maybe he’s as pure as the driven snow and this is your chance to play the hero. But he’s got a motive here—he needs you to be on his side, whether he’s innocent or guilty as hell. Just remember when you’re there, you’re his lawyer, not some floozy girlfriend going to visit to give him a peek at her boobies through the glass partition. And the overwhelming likelihood is that, no matter how smooth talking he is, if he didn’t commit this crime, he probably did something else just as bad,” Deb cautioned.
Liana knew Deb was right, but she still felt a thrill run through her at the very mention of the visit. When Joanie stuck her head in the doorway to tell Liana her time was up, she was happy to go before she betrayed any more of her bizarre emotional state.
She kissed Deb on the forehead. “Remember, you gave me Danny Shea to restore my passion for the job,” Liana said, only half kidding.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Deb said. “And don’t blame me for your poor judgment.”
“Okay, I won’t, I promise. See you back at the ranch. Please don’t take too long to recuperate. Obviously, I can’t be responsible for my actions without you in the office,” she said. A glimmer of a smile passed over Deb’s lips as she closed her eyes.
Liana made it out of Deb’s room and down the hallway before she sank down on a wooden bench, waves of dread and panic passing over her. She didn’t know how long she’d sat there before a volunteer noticed her, asking her kindly if she would like a cup of tea. When the agitation finally subsided, Liana walked back down the hallway past Deb’s room, sneaking another glance at her friend, asleep now, having overexerted herself with Liana.
At least I made her laugh. That has to be worth something.
CHAPTER 11
Liana tossed and turned most of the night before getting up at dawn to make the 6:45 Metro-North out of Grand Central Station to Beacon, New York, where she would catch a cab the rest of the way to Stormville. There were several prisons right in the area, about an hour and a half north of New York City—Green Haven, where Danny Shea was currently housed, was maximum security, men only. There had been famous inmates there over the years, most recently John Gotti—better known in legal and mafia circles as the Teflon Don for the many times he had evaded conviction before the law finally caught up with him. But Shea was one of the faceless legions of men serving out some portion of their sentences there now, in a town that was way down on its luck—so much so, that the prison industry was the mainstay of the economy.
In preparation for the visit, the first she had ever made to a correctional facility, Liana had spent the previous evening on the Internet, glancing at the rules regarding visitor conduct and scrolling through extensive advice offered by family members on various websites serving the extended prison community. There were caveats about what you could or could not bring to the inmate, as well as a long list of dos and mostly don’ts regarding what to wear and how to behave. “Don’t bring home-baked cookies.” “Don’t wear see-through clothing.” “Don’t make out in the visiting room.”
The posts were written by, and aimed almost exclusively at, women visiting their husbands or boyfriends or baby daddies. Liana tried to extrapolate what she could about attorneys visiting clients, but most of it wasn’t very relevant. She did, however, take some time to pick out an outfit that would be professional and radiate authority, neither alluring nor too off-putting. She settled on a pair of plain navy trousers that did not hug her r
ear in a particularly flattering way and a yellow, slightly loose-fitting short-sleeve crew-neck knit top. If it hadn’t been August, she might have opted for some getup that showed no skin at all, like a burka, but she didn’t want to sweat in there. For all she knew, perspiration might contain sex pheromones. In the morning, she corralled her curls into a severe knot at the back of her neck and scrubbed her face clean. She put on no makeup, not even the swipe of eyeliner she usually wore to bring out her eyes.
“Beacon, next station stop is Beacon, in ten minutes,” the conductor called out at eight o’clock. Liana had taken the train instead of renting a car, figuring she might be able to sleep a little and hopefully be refreshed when she arrived. Unfortunately, although the train was nearly empty, it made all the local stops, and Liana woke up at every station. She had finally fallen into a deeper sleep when the conductor gently touched her shoulder. “Miss,” he said, “we’re almost at your stop.”
Liana opened her eyes, and for a moment she had no idea where she was. She’d been dreaming that Jakob had been falsely accused of insider trading and she’d been hired to defend him, but in the dream she’d also been the one who’d turned him in to the authorities. Liana wasn’t much into the interpretation of dreams, but she was pretty sure this one meant she might be a double agent—appearing to be on Jakob’s side but secretly stabbing him in the back. She felt the oatmeal she had eaten for breakfast churning in her stomach, and she tried to push the dream out of her mind.
“Do you know where I can get a taxi to Green Haven?” she asked the conductor.
“Yes, you’ll see the taxi stand right where you get out. There will be other women also waiting to go see their husbands who are up here—first time visiting?” he asked, looking at her sympathetically.
“Yes,” she said, “but I’m an attorney. I’m going to visit a client.”
“Oh, sorry, miss. I didn’t mean anything by it. We don’t get that many attorneys coming up by train—this crowd is usually the wives and girlfriends, sometimes a mom. I always feel the worst for the mothers—I mean, no one thinks their little boy will end up here, right? Anyway, you’ll probably have to share a taxi with someone, so you might as well know the scoop,” he said.
“Yes, thanks. I appreciate the information,” Liana said. She made sure everything was in order in her briefcase and rummaged around in her purse for the cab fare. When the train stopped in Beacon, she was the first one off.
What am I doing here? Better to get this over as quickly as possible.
She walked over to the taxi stand, and the driver sitting in the first car rolled down his window. “Where you headed?” he said.
“Green Haven.”
“Hop in.”
Liana sat in the back seat. She looked at his license, and after a couple of minutes of idling, Liana asked, “Can we get going soon, Boris?”
“Yeah,” he said. “There’s another train that comes in from Albany in a few. We’re waiting to see who else needs to go to Green Haven. You’re not the only Juliet coming here to see her Romeo today.” Liana was going to give him the “I’m an attorney” speech and then decided it wasn’t worth it. Besides, she thought the doomed lovers was a pretty apt metaphor for what was going on for most of these visitors, and she didn’t want to discourage Boris’s literary streak.
Liana looked out the window at the women coming off the train that had just pulled in, anxious to see which desperate loser would be her companion for the ride. Liana assumed that the women would all be unattractive, overweight, or old—or some combination of the three.
Who else besides someone with very low self-esteem would voluntarily get involved with or stick around for a guy serving time for a violent crime?
Liana saw Boris motion to someone, and then a young girl slid into the backseat next to her. She could not have been more than nineteen or twenty. She was tall and willowy, with brown legs that went on for miles; she was wearing a fashionably tight and short pink skirt that Liana was not sure would pass muster with the prison guards in terms of the dress code, although she was certain that they would give the girl an A for effort. Her black hair hung down straight and thick to her waist, and her eyes were a crystal blue.
She must be part Native American, part Norwegian princess.
In short, she was a knockout, and Liana could not for the life of her imagine why she was sharing a cab to Green Haven with her at a quarter past eight on a Tuesday morning in late August.
“Rosa,” the girl said and extended her hand to Liana.
“I’m Liana,” she replied, taken aback by friendliness that simply didn’t exist in New York City, where you would sooner run across four lanes of speeding traffic than engage in conversation with a total stranger.
“I’m going to Green Haven,” Rosa said. “It’s my first time.”
“Yes, I’m going there too,” said Liana, “and I’m a virgin too.”
“Oh, wow!” Rosa exclaimed. “But I’m not a virgin,” she said quietly, looking down demurely at her lap. Boris looked at the women in the rearview mirror and raised his eyebrows. They were all silent for a few moments as Boris whisked them toward their destination. Rosa was very nervous, tapping her foot rapidly on the floor and twisting her hands together.
“I’m going to see my boyfriend,” she confided.
“Your boyfriend is at Green Haven?” Liana wanted to add, “How could that be?” but stifled the impulse.
“Are you going to see your husband?” Rosa asked.
“No. I’m an attorney. I’m going to visit a client to explain some legal issues to him,” Liana answered. Boris nodded knowingly in the front seat, as if he had figured that out long before.
“What did he do?” Rosa asked.
“Well, they say he raped someone.” Liana knew she had to be careful, even with people she would never see again, not to divulge any confidential information about her client—she prided herself on scrupulously following the rules.
“But you don’t believe it,” Rosa conjectured.
“It doesn’t matter what I believe. I’m just doing my job,” Liana answered. She looked out the window to avoid looking at Rosa.
Changing the subject, Liana asked, “How did you meet your boyfriend?”
“I haven’t met him yet,” Rosa said. “We’re pen pals—it’s a program run through an online church.” Liana had heard about such things before from her colleagues. The inmates were always looking for someone to write to—they had time on their hands, and often their own family members didn’t want much to do with them. So they would hook up with these outfits that gave them women who were willing—the letters on both sides often bordered on pornographic, and the women would sometimes send suggestive pictures of themselves to make it more real for these guys. They were all using each other, and perhaps no one was the worse for wear, but it still had an awfully sad feel to it.
Could lovely Rosa really be part of that?
Registering that Liana was familiar with the pen pal scenario, Rosa explained, “It’s not what you think. We’ve written to each other for about six months. Joe is a nice man. There’s nothing dirty about it. And he asked me to come visit, so I decided I would meet him and see what kind of person he is. Maybe he won’t even like me,” Rosa said.
“Ha!” Liana blurted out while Boris shook his head from side to side. “And what did Joe do to land himself in Green Haven?” Liana asked.
“Yeah, what did he do?” Boris chimed in.
“Well, they say he killed someone—another crack dealer who owed him money. But I don’t believe it. He writes really sweet letters, and he told me he didn’t do it,” Rosa said. Liana thought again of the letters that Danny Shea had written and wondered how much his good penmanship and grammatically correct sentence structure had influenced what she thought about him.
Was Joe also a gifted correspondent?
Liana’s thoughts were interrupted by Rosa’s question, “Are you married?”
“No, but I have a b
oyfriend,” Liana responded.
“Are you going to get married?” Rosa persisted.
“I hope so, yes,” Liana said. She thought about Jakob and how strained things had been of late. And now, here she was, going to meet Danny Shea out of a dangerous mix of neediness and attraction she could barely admit she felt.
Deb was right. I am pathetic.
“I’m thinking about marrying Joe,” Rosa said.
“What?” Boris yelled and slammed on the brakes.
“Rosa.” Liana tried to reach a calm internal place before she continued, “How much time is Joe doing for this murder you think he didn’t commit?”
“Twenty-five years,” Rosa said.
“So how old will you be before you can really be together? And I’m not talking about the occasional conjugal visit—I’m talking on the outside,” Liana prodded.
“I’ll be forty-four,” Rosa answered, doing the math as the horror of that advanced age sank in a bit.
“I know it isn’t any of my business, Rosa, but why on earth would you marry this man?” Liana said.
“Because I love him. Isn’t that what people who love each other do?” Rosa asked. Liana was taken aback momentarily by the sincerity of the question.
“I guess so, Rosa,” Liana said. “I guess that’s right.”
As huge brick walls loomed above them, they pulled into the facility. Liana took care of the taxi fare for both of them. “Thanks so much,” Rosa said. “Wish me luck!”
“I wish you all the luck in the world,” Liana said. She arranged with Boris to pick her up in two hours. She let Rosa get a head start on the long line to enter the facility, hanging back until she could no longer see the girl’s pink skirt ahead of her. She was glad to feel frumpy in her outfit and gladder still that hormones and pipe dreams were not propelling her to the front of the line. This trip was both completely unnecessary and ill-advised, but the cab ride had put things in perspective. Liana felt calmer than she had in a while.
Unreasonable Doubts Page 13
