Daddy's Girl (29 page)

I
’m big on research, but this time I went to extremes. Whether it was because of my newly empty nest or a wish for a different intellectual challenge (yeah, right), I’ve begun teaching at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. That’s right, Nat Greco’s school employs me as an adjunct professor (read, Faculty Comic Relief), and her huge lecture hall is my own. My course isn’t The History of Justice, but a course I developed called Justice and Fiction, which traces images of law and justice in books, movies, and TV. As a result, I know exactly what it feels like to stand before a class of students who are way smarter than me. (Surprisingly fun.) I hope that
Daddy’s Girl
benefits from my walking in Nat’s pumps and experiencing firsthand just how wonderful, and how difficult, it is to be a teacher. I am never more bone tired than after I teach, and it’s given me renewed respect for every teacher I’ve ever had—and furthermore, every teacher on the planet. So my deepest thanks here go to teachers, for their sacrifice, commitment, and love. I’m glad to make a teacher my heroine, because they are heroes every day. This book is dedicated to them.

I also want to make clear where reality ends and fiction begins, so here comes the disclaimer. The University of Pennsylvania Law School is real, but all of the law school faculty, staff, administration, and students in this novel are completely fictional. The real law school dean, Dean Michael Fitts, is a brilliant legal scholar who has a genuine warmth and enthusiasm for the school, its faculty and staff, and the students. Dean Fitts redefines the modern law school dean, and the faculty and administration exemplify legal education in the United States. The real vice dean is my friend Jo-Anne Verrier, whom I hope forgives the bad press her job gets here. The administration and faculty have been nothing but kind to me, and no reader should mistake any of the fictional characters in
Daddy’s Girl
for anyone at Penn Law. And as an alumna, I know it’s the best law school in the country.

Equally important, the students in
Daddy’s Girl
, while adorable, aren’t the students in my class. Frankly, my kids rock. They’re interested in learning and participate in class all the time, which has nothing to do with me and everything to do with their innate intellectual curiosity and the articulate expression of their own ideas. I did teach them
The Merchant of Venice
, for the reason Nat does, and they got the point instantly. Apologies and thanks to my students. You know I love you guys.

Because so many readers get their ideas about law and justice from fiction, it’s important to me to get my facts straight. I couldn’t do that without lots of help, cooperation, and time from experts, and any mistakes in the novel are mine. And again, in the disclaimer department, the so-called Chester County Correctional Institution in the novel is completely fictional, as are its staff and administration. To give verisimilitude to my fictional prison, I did research at an actual prison, Chester County Prison in Pocopson Township, and I want to thank the very professional and kind Major Scott Graham, Director of Security. He gave me a tour of the prison and helped me generally understand how county prisons work, even during my fictional riot herein, and I appreciate that so much. There is no such job as Assistant Warden, and none of the fictional personnel in this novel reflect any of the professional and caring administration or corrections officers at Chester County Prison. Of course, the inmates in the novel are fictional, too.

Thanks to an array of other law enforcement professionals in Chester County. Thanks to Lieutenant Brian Naylor of the Pennsylvania State Police, Embreeville Barracks, and a big hug of thanks and admiration to Sergeant Jill McKone, Avondale Barracks, who took the time to give me a complete tour, correct my trooperspeak, and explain in detail what would be obvious to anyone else. And thanks to Nicholas J. Casenta, Jr., Chief Deputy District Attorney, and Patrick Carmody, First Assistant District Attorney, both of the Chester County District Attorney’s Office, for their time, expertise, and warmth. Thanks, too, to Detective Sergeant Jeffrey S. Gordon of the Chester County Detectives Office, for helping me understand local police procedures.

Thanks, as always, to my old friends Glenn Gilman, Esq., and retired detective Art Mee, for legal and police expertise. And thanks to new friends, the lovely and brilliant Dr. Felicia Lewis and my lifesaver Dr. John J. O’Hara. And to book maven Joe Drabyak, who always goes the extra mile—for books.

SPOILER ALERT: I owe an important thanks here, but you shouldn’t read on if you haven’t finished the book yet. What follows is a complete and total spoiler and will reveal a PLOT TWIST, so please don’t read it now or it will ruin the surprise. In fact, cover the rest of the page with your hand because it would kill me if this was ruined for you. But I have to thank this person in print and want to explain why. So go finish the book and then come back. Please.

Thanks to historian Mary Dugan who educated me on the Underground Railroad in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and who devotes so much of her time to the Kennett Underground Railroad Center in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Let me take a minute to provide some background for those of you who need a short refresher on American history, or those from another country. The Underground Railroad existed and was most active from 1835 to 1865, during an awful chapter in American history when the slavery of African Americans was legal. Slaves were “owned” by many in the southern states, though it became illegal in the northern states. Slaves were often cruelly treated—forced to perform backbreaking labor and endure physical punishments and worse—and their families and children were often divided and sold to other owners. In time, many slaves became desperate for their basic right to live free and ran away to the northern states, placing themselves in legal and lethal jeopardy. They became fugitives from the law and were subject to punishment and even death if they were caught.

The term “Underground Railroad” was supposedly coined by a slavecatcher, who, failing to find his prey, said, “There must be an underground railroad somewhere.” The term is misleading because there was no actual railroad under the ground, with rails, train cars, and such. Instead, the Underground Railroad was a series of people willing to hide the fleeing slaves in their homes. Those who hid the slaves were called “station masters” and their homes were “stations” or “stops.” The stations tended to be no more than eight to fifteen miles apart, the length of travel on foot in one terrifying night. There are no reliable estimates of how many slaves escaped to freedom, because records were not kept for fear of being used as evidence. Estimates have ranged from 30,000 to 100,000, and according to William Switala’s
Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania
, 13, (2001), a report given in 1864 to the Freedman’s Inquiry Commission in Washington, D.C., estimated that 30,000 to 40,000 slaves reached the north.

Chester County, Pennsylvania, did play a very active role in the Underground Railroad. The “central route” or “Eastern Line” of the Underground Railroad began in Maryland and Delaware, ran north through Chester County, and traveled farther to Norristown and then Philadelphia. Chester County residents helped many former slaves escape northward because the county lay just over the Mason-Dixon Line and was home to a committed and courageous network of free African Americans and abolitionist Quakers. Quakers of the Progressive Meeting in Longwood and the Marlborough Friends Meeting in Pocopson hid the slaves in their homes, at great personal risk. Many of the homes still stand, and interestingly, surround what would later become Chester County Prison. Levi Ward, Eusebius and Sarah Barnard, William Barnard, Joseph and Ruth Dugdale, Mary and Moses Pennock, John and Hannah Cox, Isaac and Thomazine Meredith all lived in homes surrounding what is now the prison and hid slaves in their homes.

Historian Mary Dugan took me to some of the county’s “stations” and showed me hiding places in outbuildings and private homes, for which I am very grateful. In fact, the names of the Quaker “station masters” in the novel are completely authentic, and so are the slaves’ names and initials, taken from actual names I found in my research. I cannot begin to describe here how much I admire the bravery and heart of these former slaves, whom the law had treated so cruelly, as well as the people who helped them escape. They risked everything for justice.

For those of you who want to read more about the Underground Railroad, there are several books which informed this novel, and many of them contain original source material, which make for fascinating reading. Do take a look at: William Still,
The Underground Railroad
(1872) and R. C. Smedley,
History of The Underground Railroad in Chester and the Neighboring Counties of Pennsylvania
(1883). Both of these works bring history to life, and William Still’s is a wide-ranging must-read. Mr. Still was an African American who was chairman of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society’s Vigilance Committee and he interviewed fugitives whom he helped hide, creating a firsthand account of the life of slaves, including which farms and plantations they worked, who “owned” them, and how they escaped. More recently, you can read Fergus Bordewich,
Bound for Canaan
(2005); David Blight, ed.,
Passages To Freedom
(2004); William Kashatus,
Justice Over the Line: Chester County and the Underground Railroad
(2002); and William Switala,
Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania
(2001).

End of the spoiler, back to pure love.

Thanks to those of you who selected
Daddy’s Girl
for your book club. I appreciate you letting me join, and I have posted discussion questions on a special webpage for book clubs at my website, www. scottoline.com. I think you’ll find the questions fun and thought-provoking, and I hope that the historical backdrop to the novel will inform a lively and emotional debate. Raise a glass of wine for me, and enter the Third Annual Contest for book clubs. It’s a random drawing and if you win, you get a visit from me and I take all of you to dinner. (And second prize is…)

Thanks to the following people, who gave generously to an array of worthy causes at silent auctions to have their name appear in the novel: Adele McIlhargey (benefiting Gwinnett County Library, Georgia), Bill Sasso (YMCA of Philadelphia), Jennifer Paradis (Key For the Cure), Elizabeth Warren (by Bruce Mann for the Equal Justice Foundation), Clare Cracy (by Marian Staley to benefit the Fox Chase Cancer Center), Agnes Grady Chesko (by Pat Chesko for The ARC of Chester County), Max Bischoff (by Paul Roots for the Miami Valley Literacy Council, Ohio), and Melanie Anderson (bought at the terrific Turn the Page Bookstore in Boonsboro, Maryland), and my old friends Sam and Carolyn Morris (French & Pickering Land Trust).

And this is in loving memory of David Brian Mundy, bought by my friend Debby Mundy, his wonderful sister, and also in memory of Professor Edward Sparer, a terrific professor at the law school, remembered by all of us and especially by my classmate Alan Sandals, to support the Equal Justice Foundation. And finally, in loving memory of Edward Duffy and Marilyn Krug, remembered by Janet Moore and Steve Werner in support of Family Services of Chester County.

Finally, thanks to everyone at HarperCollins, my one and only publisher for the past fourteen years and fourteen books. Thanks to Carolyn Marino, my extraordinary editor, who encourages my flights of fancy like teaching, even when they take away from my writing time. And big thanks to the great team at Harper: CEO and role model Jane Friedman, Brian Murray, Michael Morrison, Jonathan Burnham, Kathy Schneider, Josh Marwell, Christine Boyd, Liate Stehlik, Maureen O’Brien, and Wendy Lee, who work so hard on publishing my books and do such a terrific job. I know how lucky I am, guys.

Thanks to Molly Friedrich of The Friedrich Agency, who is quite simply the best literary agent in the world, as well as the equally talented (okay, so both are the best) Paul Cirone. Thanks to superagent Lou Pitt, who represents me so well in Hollywood. Love and thanks to Andy Marino, writer and musician. And love and a special thanks to Laura Leonard, who helps me in so many ways, from being a sounding board for book ideas to being a great girlfriend, which, as everybody knows, is the most valuable person in the world.

Thanks and love to my family, because they are my heart.

And love to my late father, who made me a Daddy’s Girl, forever.