The Ex (12 page)

“This isn’t the place, son—” Don placed a gentle hand on one of Max’s shoulders, but Max immediately pulled away.

“Don’t touch me. And don’t you dare call me son. How the hell can you people sleep at night?”

He stepped backward, leaving us alone in silence. Buckley was pressed into the corner. When I asked if she was okay, she nodded, but she was obviously rattled.

As we stepped from the elevator, Don whispered to me, “So which was it? Protecting his father’s legacy or all that money?”

I had walked into the courtroom with so many alternative suspects that I’d had a hard time keeping all the theories straight. Max Neeley had just made himself a lot more interesting.

My call to Gary Hannigan went to voice mail. “I’m hoping that lunch at Veselka entitles me to one more favor. You mentioned that Max Neeley had an ex-girlfriend who wasn’t too fond of her would-be father-in-law. Do you happen to have a name and number for her?”

TWO DAYS LATER, I ARRIVED
ten minutes before my scheduled appointment, my umbrella still dripping from the summer rain. But when I walked through the front doors, Einer immediately glanced toward a woman sitting in the waiting room. She was early.

I had Googled Amanda Turner after getting her name from Gary Hannigan, so I had seen a few photographs of her—one on her LinkedIn profile, a few on her otherwise private Facebook page, a charity fund-raiser in East Hampton. But in person, she was stunningly beautiful, the kind of pretty you don’t expect outside the airbrushed, Photoshopped pages of a magazine. She was wearing jeans, but they were fancy skinny jeans, paired with high-heeled sandals and a bright pink silk blouse. Even though it was humid and sticky outside, her long caramel-colored hair looked freshly blown. I knew from last spring’s “must have” list in the Bloomingdale’s catalog that the handbag on her lap had a four-digit price tag.

She must have recognized me, too, because she bounded from her chair when she saw me, thanking me for taking the time to talk with her, even though I had been the one to request the meeting.

According to Gary Hannigan, Amanda had been all too eager to dish the dirt on Malcolm Neeley. My hope was that she had new tales for me as well, perhaps some involving Max’s animosity toward his father. I greeted her with my warmest smile. “I love that bag. Tod’s? So cute.”

AMANDA HAD THE LOOKS OF
a kept woman whose only jobs were shopping and staying pretty, but her demeanor reflected the education and experience listed in her LinkedIn profile: an art history degree from Sarah Lawrence and three years’ marketing experience with a major cosmetics manufacturer. Across from me at the circular table in the corner of my office, she sat upright in her chair with crossed legs and the kind of open body language taught in public-speaking classes to convey honesty and confidence to an audience.

“I understand you were in a relationship with Max Neeley.”

“On and off, yes. Serious for a couple of years, in fact.”

“Does Max know you’re here?”

“Definitely not, and I hope you won’t have reason to mention it to him. I’d like to help you, though.”

“I can’t imagine why. Max has made it clear he’s not very happy with the arguments we raised at the bail hearing.”

“You barely scratched the surface. Malcolm was not a good person. He was cruel and controlling.”

“Unfortunately for my client, the victim-was-an-asshole isn’t a defense.”

“Maybe not officially, but when juries like the so-called bad guy more than the victim, they don’t put anyone in jail. You see it all the time on the news. From that chick who cut her man’s pecker off to the racists who get away with killing kids in hoodies. It’s a popularity contest.”

She was right. If Malcolm Neeley had been the only one to die at the waterfront, I’d fillet him so thoroughly that no jury would care about his death. “Sounds like you should be a lawyer.”

“Not enough money in it anymore, but thank you.” My office suddenly felt small, and I noticed smudges on the glass of the table. “I know enough to guess that you’ll be pointing to alternative suspects. I’m hoping, for Max’s sake, you can refrain from highlighting the dispute between the Sentry Group and the Grubers.”

Frederick Gruber was the investor who had sued Neeley’s hedge
fund, arguing that his wife and Neeley were lovers who duped him into investing. Gruber had looked like a prime alternative suspect, but unfortunately, we’d already debunked the theory. Gruber was worth billions, so his investment in the Sentry Group was a pittance compared to his overall wealth. Perhaps more important was the evidence the Sentry’s lawyers had filed to show the Grubers had an open marriage, meaning jealousy wasn’t a likely factor.

I saw no reason to share any of this with Amanda. “Max isn’t my client, so his well-being is really not my concern.”

“But that’s why I’m offering to tell you whatever you want to know about Malcolm. He had other girlfriends, and I’m sure some of them were married, too. And there was a reason Frederick Gruber wanted to pull his money. Malcolm was overstating the fund’s assets. He wasn’t as rich as he let on. That’s why Max wanted to go out on his own—to start his own hedge fund. But Malcolm was such an asshole, he wouldn’t give Max any seed money. And he didn’t even pay him what he was worth as a salary. He used his money to control Max.”

“I get the impression this is personal for you.”

She looked out my office window for a few seconds before focusing on me again. “Max loves me, but we broke up because his father told him he should marry rich. He said he married Max and Todd’s mother for love, and look what happened. He told Max his best bet at seed money for his own fund was to find a sugar momma and a generous father-in-law.”

“And here you are, fighting for a man who actually listened to that garbage.”

“Part of why I love Max is that I think I understand him. It’s like his whole family was afraid of love. Malcolm was a bad person, but I do believe he was crushed when his wife killed herself. And the news never really reported this, but a broken heart was the reason Todd was so distraught before—you know, Penn Station. He was head over heels for some girl at school who wouldn’t give him the time of day. He said she was all wrapped up with some older guy. He’d talk about all
these plans to break them up, like awkward, scrawny Todd could save Rapunzel or something. And in Malcolm and Max’s eyes, look what that love did to him? It turned him into a madman.”

I found myself looking away. Amanda made it sound like a fear of love was the saddest thing in the world.

“And what about Max?” I asked.

“Now that Malcolm’s gone, he has a shot. He can run the Sentry Group better than his father ever did. And he’ll get Gruber to drop that lawsuit and keep his money with Max. But if you start dropping Gruber’s name in a murder trial, he’ll run as far as he can from the Sentry Group. But if things work out for Max at work—”

“He can be with the woman he actually loves.”

She smiled. “And that’s why I’ll tell you whatever you want to know about Malcolm Neeley. Do we have a deal?”

I made up some wishy-washy ethical reason for why I couldn’t make any guarantees, but promised to consider her wishes. “You know, you’ve said Malcolm was a bad person and a horrible father, but you haven’t mentioned how Max felt about him. Did the two of them get along?”

A worried look crossed her face. “You asked that because of what happened at Princeton.”

“I was only asking for your opinion.” She could construe my response however she liked.

“He was drunk and pissed off. It got totally blown out of proportion. Max loved his father, even though Malcolm didn’t deserve it.”

As soon as she left my office, I hit the Speaker button on my phone. Don answered immediately. “Turns out Max and his father had serious issues over money. We need to find out how much Max inherits now that his dad’s out of the way.” An alarm on my phone reminded me that it was time to go. “And can you ask Einer to see what he can find out about Max’s time at Princeton? It sounds like there was some kind of episode.”

I wouldn’t have time to look into it myself. Jack was coming home today.

I
T HAD TAKEN
two days for the police to schedule a time to inspect Jack’s apartment to approve the conditions of his release. I wanted to be here to make sure everything went smoothly. Of course, Charlotte insisted on being with Buckley to “oversee the process” and had hired cleaners to make the apartment pristine after the police search.

While two men installed the boxes that would monitor the signal from Jack’s electronic monitoring anklet, Charlotte was monitoring the blogosphere’s coverage of Jack’s case on her iPad. Since Jack’s arrest, she and I had fallen into a comfortable rhythm, but we still had never spoken without Buckley in the room, which limited the scope of our conversations. “I got to hand it to you, Randall,” she said, “every paper’s got a quote from at least one person wondering if the cops rushed to judgment. The
Daily News
even mentioned the female victim’s drug arrest, like maybe she was the intended target or something. They got a little picture and everything.” She turned her tablet screen toward me. “She looks a bit like a young you, don’t you think? More strung out, mind you, but the resemblance is there.”

Buckley popped up from the sofa and grabbed for the iPad. “I want to see.”

We were both looking at what was apparently a booking photo of Tracy Frankel. Dark hair. Wide-set eyes. Heart-shaped face. But that was as far as the similarities went. “You’re crazy,” I said.

“And you’re blind,” Charlotte said, letting Buckley wander back to the sofa with her. “But you know what? You’re also a fucking miracle worker. Malcolm’s son is trying to make him sound like a saint, but you totally turned the story around, and now Jack is coming home.”

I wanted to remind her not to get her hopes up, but for Buckley’s sake, let the optimism fill the air.

“Ma’am,” one of the deputies said, “to be clear, you’re taking that tablet with you when you leave? We’ll have to make sure of that.”

“Yes sirree.”

As a condition of his release, Jack could have no visitors to the apartment other than his daughter and lawyers. The court had also added a no-Internet provision, which was usually reserved for sex offenders or other people whose crimes could be facilitated on the Web, but I had decided to quit while we were ahead. The
New York Observer
had already asked if there was any chance of a black man being released pending trial on murder charges, and I had to admit there was not.

“And the girl here knows the condition applies to her, too, right? No iPhones, Google phones, Samsungs, blueberries, strawberries—nothing.” You could tell it was a joke the officer had used hundreds of times.

Buckley waved the brand-new basic flip phone Charlotte had purchased two hours ago. “The
girl
here has her vintage 1990 mo-bile ready to go.” She pronounced “mobile” as if it rhymed with “mile.”

The fact that Verizon wanted a full-day window three weeks from now to install a landline probably explained why I, like the Harris home, no longer had one.

“Stop staring at a picture of a dead girl,” Charlotte said, snatching her iPad back from Buckley. “It’s not healthy.”

“Sorry. It’s just—she’s so
young
there. Like, not much older than me.” She seemed shaken by the thought of someone her own age being killed. “Hey, by the way, how do they even know if we’re following all these rules?”

I looked around to make sure the officers were out of earshot. “Because they’re installing a camera at the door and have the right to conduct random inspections, so don’t even think about it. You can live without a smartphone for a while.”

Buckley jumped from the sofa at the sound of the doorbell and ran to the front hall.

Jack was wearing the clothes Einer had dropped off yesterday at the jail for him—khakis and a white polo shirt. They both seemed baggy. The officers had draped a jacket over his handcuffs. Buckley threw her arms around her father. When the officer looked at me and cleared his throat, I tapped her shoulder gently and explained that they needed to get Jack situated before she and her father could have a real reunion.

“You took the freight elevator?” I asked the oldest of the three officers, whom I assumed to be in charge.

“As directed,” he confirmed.

Jack’s building had a keyed exit for residents in back, next to the freight elevator, with no cameras. I didn’t want footage of him disheveled and in handcuffs getting leaked to the media.

They attached his ankle bracelet and checked the signal while he walked through every inch of the apartment and then out into the hallway to make sure that the monitor alerted before he made it to the elevator or staircase.

During the entire process, Jack moved like a scared cat, hunched, like someone might grab the scruff of his neck at any second and throw him back into a box of other animals. When the officers finally left, they made Charlotte leave with them, and she gave Jack a final kiss on
the cheek before departing. When I locked the door behind them, Jack seemed to grow two inches taller.

I looked out the window, watching a woman on the sidewalk wrangle a dozen dogs ranging from a mastiff to a rat terrier, while Buckley and Jack hugged and cried. The emotions that come with pretrial release are complicated. There’s the obvious relief of being home. There’s the temptation to think that a favorable bail decision bodes well for the future. But there’s also intense sadness at the thought that these days may be numbered. The days pending trial can become a kind of prison sentence in and of themselves.

Jack let out a small whoop of relief. “Is it terrible that all I want to do is take a shower and sit on the sofa with you and eat pizza and watch movies?”

Buckley ran to the coffee table and held up two DVDs that she had already set aside:
Working Girl
and
Ghostbusters
. “Great minds think alike. I’ve got your favorites ready to go.”

“Excellent. Just let me talk to Olivia about some legal matters before she goes.”

JACK GAVE ME A QUICK
hug once we were alone. I was surprised by how natural it felt. “I still can’t believe it. I thought I’d never get out of there. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

The look in his eyes took me to a night at Arlene’s Grocery, back when it was first converted from a bodega-slash-butcher shop into a bar with live music. Jack and I were dancing near the front of the stage. The band was one of our favorites—the Spoiled Puppies. That night, the band broke out into a cover of “Anything, Anything” by Dramarama.

We danced so hard while the singer promised candy, diamonds, and pills that Jack’s arms were slick with sweat when he wrapped them around me as we jumped to the beat. And when the final chorus came,
the band added one more repeat of the line, “Just marry me, marry me, marry meeeee.”

The lights came up, the band fell silent, and Jack dropped to one knee. I couldn’t even hear what he had to say over the sound of applause and wolf whistles from the back of the bar—Charlotte, Owen, some college friends who I thought had all come to celebrate our graduation. But I saw the ring. And I saw the look in Jack’s eyes—longing, pleading, vulnerable. He needed me so badly, and, in that moment, I believed we’d be one of those couples who brought out the best in each other for the rest of our lives. I made him stronger. He made me softer.

I shook myself out of the memory. Jack needed me now, but for a very specific purpose, and I had done my part so far by getting him home.

I acted like my performance at the bail hearing was no big deal.

Jack settled into his sofa like it was the most comfortable place in the world. “I had no idea about the gunshot residue until the ADA mentioned it. Is that why they suddenly booked me?”

I nodded.

“The detective wouldn’t tell me. That test has to be wrong. Or the police faked the results or something. Do they really do that?”

I wasn’t above arguing that police would intentionally doctor the evidence—it was an argument I’d made more than could possibly be true—but did I really believe it? No. And, sure, accidental transfers happened, but it was yet another unlucky coincidence, and too many of those could add up to proof beyond a reasonable doubt. “Jack, can you think of any way you would have that residue on your shirt? Were you
ever
around a gun, or someone else who fired a gun?”

I was shocked when he answered yes. Long before Molly was killed, Jack already hated guns. I was there the first time he ever held one. My father took us to the range. Jack was terrified, positive that he was going to be the first victim of an accidental shooting in the history of the Roseburg Shooting Club.

“It’s research for a book,” he said. “I’ve been going to a shooting range, trying to understand the gun culture.”

“A book about Penn Station?”

“Not directly. Fictionalized.”

From what I gathered, Jack’s previous novels were all fictionalized versions of his real life. His debut novel—the one he’d written while Molly supported him—was about a young couple whose female half was a pathological liar and a serial cheater. The second was about a man who became a father after struggling with mental health issues. The third was about a male writer whose only meaningful relationships were with his wife, daughter, and lesbian best friend. You get the drift.

“That’s great, Jack. If we can explain that GSR, all they have is speculation. Why didn’t you tell me this at the bail hearing?”

“I don’t know. I guess I was still in shock. And I didn’t think that was possible. I mean, it would have been probably a month ago. And I don’t even know if I wore that shirt.”

“But you could have.”

“I honestly don’t remember. How long can that stuff stick around?”

“Let me worry about the details.” I had him write down the name of the shooting range.

“And your book will make clear that you were doing this research?”

“The one I’m working on now is almost finished. The gun research was for the next one.”

“But do you have notes or something?”

“No, I don’t work like that. It lives in my head until I find the story. But I told the guys there that I was a writer and wanted to learn about guns. I’m sure they’ll remember.”

He still didn’t seem to understand that the prosecution wasn’t going to accept everything he said at face value.

As he handed the notepad back to me, he asked if I had gotten in touch with Madeline yet. “Once she tells the police that she was the one
who picked our meeting place and time, that knocks out the coincidence of me being at the field that morning.”

I had sent an e-mail to her from Jack’s account after he was arrested, but, with everything that had been going on, I hadn’t even logged into Jack’s e-mail accounts for the last couple of days. “I wanted to talk to you about that, Jack. Maybe it’s not just a coincidence. Other people had a motive to go after Neeley. If someone else wanted Neeley dead, you were sort of the perfect fall guy.”

“You think Madeline set me up?”

I explained the possibility that someone had read his e-mail exchange with Madeline and then took advantage of knowing exactly where he would be. When Buckley had first raised the possibility the night of Jack’s arrest, it had sounded fairly simple. Now that I was explaining the theory aloud, I saw the flaws in the hypothesis. Einer had already contacted Gmail with a privacy release from Jack. The only log-ins to Jack’s account since he first told Charlotte about seeing the girl in the grass were from the IP address at Jack’s apartment, so there was no way anyone had hacked into his account unless they did it from his own wireless network. Most important, even if someone had known where Jack would be that morning, they’d also have to know that Neeley would be there. The whole setup sounded too complicated.

When I was done thinking aloud, Jack stared at me in silence. It dawned on me that this was the first chance he’d had to focus on me since his arrest. At both the precinct and the bail hearing, he’d been panic-stricken, threatened with imminent incarceration. He was no longer looking at me like his savior. He looked hurt.

“Is this a cross-examination?” he asked.

“What? No. Jack, I’m just going through every possible explanation.”

“Except you pretty much trashed that one all on your own. You don’t think I did this, do you?”

“Of course not, but I’m seeing the problems now with the e-mail hack theory. And I have to think about how all this is going to look to
the prosecution. They seized an entire file cabinet of material about Malcolm Neeley from your office, Jack. And I saw your Internet history—you did an awful lot of fishing around about Neeley.” I had been very careful not to ask Charlotte and Buckley what had become of Jack’s laptop. “You told the police that you were only going along with the other families in the civil suit, but the DA will make it look like you were obsessed. I mean, the value of Neeley’s real estate?”

“It’s a civil suit. How much the man’s worth is relevant. You know, maybe you should go work for the other side, because you’re twisting everything around.”

“No, you are.” I actually said the words,
No, you are.
I forced myself to take a deep breath. I knew my tone had sounded harsh, but this conversation was reminding me of how sensitive he had always been, so quick to feel rejected. When the first literary agent he approached turned down his work, he had torn the rejection letter to shreds and refused to write another word for two months. To Jack, what every writer expected as part of the journey was utter humiliation.

We heard footsteps in the hall. Buckley was standing in the doorway, looking at me suspiciously. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s fine,” Jack said. “I’ll come get you when we’re done.”

When we were alone again, I reassured Jack that I wasn’t accusing him of anything. “My job is to get your side of the story, which means asking hard questions.”

“Then just listen, okay?” His voice was calmer now. “Most of the stuff in the files was just paper sent to all the plaintiffs by our lawyer. As for the rest, the research on Neeley was something we did together—Buckley and me. It’s something her therapist suggested. I know, it sounds weird, but I’ve been encouraged to stop sheltering her from information about the shooting. They tell me to be open about everything—
absolute truth.
Molly’s death was hard on Buckley—”